TAMPA, Fla. – A Tampa tech entrepreneur plans to turn Tampa Bay into Cyber Bay, making the area a launch pad into the nation’s digital future through a new conference.
What we know:
Arnie Bellini, a tech entrepreneur and founder of ConnectWise, wants the spotlight to shine on Tampa Bay and its cybersecurity industry.
Bellini teamed up with Cyber Florida at the University of South Florida to host a first of its kind conference, CyberBay, at the downtown Tampa Marriott.
“We’re bringing academia, along with tech entrepreneurs, the military and government together to answer the question, ‘How do we make cybersecurity as available as any utility?’” said Bellini.
Bellini said they conducted a survey to pinpoint those challenges.
“What we learned from quite a few IT professionals is that cybersecurity is too expensive. Cybersecurity solutions are not scalable. Cybersecurity solutions are not integrated into other solutions and there’s also a lack of real workforce development in cybersecurity,” said Bellini.
Dig deeper:
A recent CyberSeek report said there are at least half a million cybersecurity jobs open, and that number is growing.
“We don’t have enough training. We have too expensive training. And people are not really focused on this as a real national security issue. It is a national security issue,” said Bellini.
That’s a problem, especially considering recent hacks that took down airport systems or stole sensitive data.
“Now you’re seeing organizations that they shut down, hospitals that can no longer treat patients because their patient administration system is compromised or is being held for ransom,” Ernie Ferraresso, the senior director of Cyber Florida, explained.
Ferraresso said you don’t have to be big to be worried.
Cybersecurity affects local governments and small businesses too.
“If you’re the leader of an organization, whether you like it or not, you’re a technology person now, and you have to understand what that means and where your digital assets are and how do you protect them and how do you secure them,” said Ferraresso.
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What’s next:
CyberBay’s main conference will be on October 14th and 15th.
They hope to also add more workers to the tech pipeline in Tampa Bay through USF’s new Bellini College of AI, Cybersecurity and Computing.
The Source: The information in this story was gathered by FOX13’s Briona Arradondo.
