On New Year’s Eve, the University of Michigan and the University of Alabama will face off in the third annual ReliaQuest Bowl in Tampa Bay. ReliaQuest will use this high-profile event to raise awareness of the importance of cybersecurity and career opportunities within the cybersecurity industry.
This year, ReliaQuest is taking its efforts a step further by providing real-world cybersecurity training to participating college campuses in this and last year’s ReliaQuest Bowl games, offering a two-day cybersecurity bootcamp at each school.
Developed over the past decade by ReliaQuest, our lab programs provide students with hands-on experience with real-world cybersecurity scenarios and technologies to complement what they learn in the classroom. For the past six years, ReliaQuest has offered this program through the University of South Florida in Tampa, resulting in hundreds of graduates being offered jobs at our global cybersecurity company. ReliaQuest Bowl gives us the opportunity to expand this program to other universities across the country.
The program typically includes four weeks of on-the-job training delivered at ReliaQuest headquarters, where students are paired with a mentor and are introduced to a variety of common cybersecurity tactics and techniques. The ReliaQuest Bowl program condenses the curriculum into a two-day bootcamp that provides students with an introduction to cybersecurity while also leading to future job opportunities at ReliaQuest.
This initiative highlights ReliaQuest’s commitment to using bowl game sponsorships to raise awareness about the importance and opportunity of the cybersecurity industry. The purpose of this program is to provide talented students with the opportunity to build their knowledge and skills, but students from any university can participate if they wish.
Brian Murphy, Founder and CEO of ReliaQuest, said: “We often hear about the lack of skilled, trained cyber professionals, but the lack of skilled and trained cyber security talent is growing. It doesn’t mean there is.” “It’s our responsibility as an industry to fill that gap.”
Many students enter college without knowing what a career in the cybersecurity industry is like on a day-to-day basis. The ReliaQuest program not only gives students real-world insight into the industry, but also connects them with mentors and experts who do the work every day.
By sponsoring the ReliaQuest Bowl game, ReliaQuest expands the scope of cybersecurity awareness and celebrates the dedication and excellence of the student-athletes, coaches, and universities who compete in the game, while making things possible in our community. You can keep the focus on people.
“We are honored to be selected by ReliaQuest to participate in the ReliaQuest Labs program,” said Dr. Robert Green, Interim Dean of Engineering at Mississippi State University, which competed in the 2023 ReliaQuest Bowl. “This unique program not only allows cybersecurity students to improve their technical skills, but also provides juniors and seniors with real-world experience and develops their threat detection and prevention skills to address the world’s most important threats. As one of the nation’s leading security companies, we are able to serve as a workforce ready to tackle pressing challenges. ”
The program is expected to be available in the spring of 2025, with the exact date to be announced in the coming weeks.
