In the summer of 2021, Idaho Global Entrepreneurial Mission’s Higher Education Research Council awarded $700,000 per year (with the opportunity to renew for three years for a total of $2.1 million) to Boise State to establish the Cyberdome.
The Cyberdome is a platform providing three key benefits to the state and its citizens. First, it creates a cybersecurity ready workforce that elevates Idaho as a leader across the nation. Second, it creates a platform that reduces the risk to the state and its citizens. Third, it creates techniques, tools, and product commercialization opportunities that produce long-term economic value.
“The Cyberdome is unique to our needs because it not only reduces the risk to the state and its citizens but also enables a cybersecurity ready workforce that will make Idaho a leader across the nation. Further, through this platform our faculty will be able to create and extend new techniques, tools, and commercial products to enhance economic value for Boise State and Idaho,” said Ed Vasko, director of the Institute for Pervasive Cybersecurity, and principal investigator on the grant.
The goal of the Cyberdome is to cooperatively secure client community assets by engaging the best and brightest within the industry across the state, including cybersecurity leaders at the INL, the State of Idaho, Idaho’s universities and colleges, and private industry. Using the Cyberdome’s collaborative platform, these entities can simultaneously reduce critical cyber/physical risks for state, local, tribal, and territorial clients while creating competency-based learning platforms for Idaho cybersecurity learners; making Idaho “Cyber Workforce Ready” for employers.
Ultimately, the Cyberdome will also increase opportunities for applied research that will enhance Boise State University and Idaho as industry innovators.
“People in rural and underserved population areas – and the rural towns, counties, education / health districts – are the primary clients for the Cyberdome,” Vasko said. “It is these exact people and clients that we hope to help through our platform. Further, the Cyberdome is built to allow rural and underserved students to engage and collaborate with other students throughout the state. Students gain valuable cybersecurity knowledge to start their careers, their communities are protected against cyber criminals and other adversaries, and the state’s made more secure as a result.”
For more information, please visit the Institute for Pervasive Cybersecurity website.