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Strengthening Ontario’s cybersecurity community through training

A headshot of Delilah Moysich

Delilah Moysich
Vice President of Business Planning and Partnerships, ORION

When I first heard our research and education community identify training as a concern, I knew we needed to gather more data. We’ve seen that by working as a collective, we can move the needle on cybersecurity. Through our Ontario Cybersecurity Higher Education Consortium (ON-CHEC) program, we have created the largest cybersecurity benchmarking data set in Canadian higher education. This gives us the detailed information we needed to track our collective cybersecurity progress, knowledge gaps and to identify which training programs we need to build.

ORION’s responsive approach to community training involves the larger community at every step of the way. Receiving feedback regularly from participants and our community helps us keep training opportunities tailored to their needs. And the results show that it’s working. Over 94% participants said that ORION Community Training workshops content and outcomes were transferable to their role and day-to-day work and will increase their organizational security postures. By staying in tune with our participants, we ensure that training courses are suited to their priorities. That’s the strength of community.

Upcoming training opportunities

Customized cybersecurity training header imageAs we collectively navigate the COVID-19 crisis, the ways in which we interact and collaborate are changing. ORION is proud to have the opportunity to serve our community by bringing people together to help close the cybersecurity skills gap.

Although it might be some time until we can get together in person, our team is developing resources to provide more training opportunities for our constituents this summer. We want to ensure that the community has continued access to training until our new program is ready for you. To this end, ORION is partnering with EC-Council to soon offer their most popular cybersecurity courses through self-paced online learning. These training options will offer more flexibility. As we continue to apply the feedback we’ve received, we will also begin offering training pathways that will reflect the key roles and responsibilities of cybersecurity professionals, and will be tailored to meet the needs of the research and education community. We also want to empower non-IT staff about their vital role in cybersecurity. Stay tuned: all of ORION’s Community Training courses will be available to Ontario’s education and research sector.

Moving forward

Building community in online spaces is going to be something that everyone will adapt to with time, as we work through the COVID-19 crisis. Taking a community approach is what makes ORION Community Training successful. ORION is here to support Ontario’s research and education community as we launch our new Community Training programs.

We look forward to working with all of you as we navigate this new landscape together. Let’s continue to broaden the conversation on cybersecurity.

If you have any questions about ORION Community Training, please reach out to me or my colleague Nicole Hurtubise, ORION’s Senior Manager, Community Training and Product Marketing, at: nicole.hurtubise@orion.on.ca.