IBM and HBCUs: Fueling a New Generation of Cybersecurity Experts
31:11 Share

Hello, hello. Welcome to Smart Talks with IBM, a podcast from Pushkin Industries, iHeartRadio, and IBM. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. This season, we're talking to the new creators, the developers, data scientists, CTOs, and other visionaries who are creatively applying technology in business to drive change. Channeling their knowledge and expertise, they're developing more creative and effective solutions, no matter the industry.

Our guest today is Dr. Derek Warren, Associate Dean and Director of Graduate Programs at the Southern University College of Business. After a 32-year career at IBM, Derek chose to become a professor. And as a professor in the business school of a historically Black university, it's his job to make sure Southern University students acquire the skills they need to remain competitive in the modern job market.

For Derek, that's where cybersecurity comes in. With nearly half a million unfilled jobs in the U.S. alone, the industry's demand for professionals with technical expertise is staggering. In an effort to bridge the gap, in 2022, IBM announced a collaboration with 20 HBCUs to establish a cybersecurity leadership center at each of them.

Through this partnership, HBCU students have gained access to IBM training, software, and credentials at no cost to them, with the aim of building the vibrant and diverse workforce cybersecurity urgently needs. In today's episode, you'll hear how Derek is using IBM Skills Build, a suite of courses focusing on business and tech,

to arm his students with the knowledge necessary to stand out to employers, and his approach to inspiring creativity in himself and his students. Derek spoke with Dr. Lori Santos, host of the Pushkin podcast, The Happiness Lab. Lori is a professor of psychology at Yale University and an expert on human cognition and mental well-being. Okay, let's get to the interview. ♪

Derek, tell us a little bit about your role at Southern University System. I am the Associate Dean and Director of Graduate Programs for the Southern University College of Business. I'm also an Associate Professor of Management, as well as the single point of contact, our SPOC, as we like to call it, for our relationship with IBM Global University Programs. And so then walk me through your role at IBM. Like, how does that connect to your role at SUS today? Well, I am...

A 32-year IBM alumnus. I started with IBM right out of college. I graduated from Southern University in computer science. And after getting those job offers with IBM, I started in Tampa, Florida there and had a very vibrant career.

exciting and fulfilling career with IBM. And after returning to Southern, after retiring, got a call from a colleague at IBM Vice President who said, you need to speak to someone in IBM Global University's programs because we have these spectacular programs and HBCUs don't seem to be taking advantage of them enough.

So I said, hey, I'm happy to listen. We did that first conversation. I said these would be fantastic for Southern University. Primarily, I'm in the at that time I was director of alumni for Southern University.

And my thinking was these programs could help not only level the playing field, but further differentiate us and our students by providing access to these in-demand technologies that were offered through IBM Global University programs. So the technologies focused around artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, cybersecurity, data science, design thinking, the Internet of Things,

quantum computing. So providing that access was something that I definitely wanted Southern University faculty, staff, and students to be involved in. So today's episode is all about the need for diversity in cybersecurity. And so talk about the role that diversity should be playing in cybersecurity today.

Diversity in and itself offers the opportunity to introduce and to include broader perspectives, different trains of thought,

And when you think about cybersecurity and the dangers of it and the number of bad actors that are at play there, you need as much diverse thinking to help solve these problems as possible. And cybersecurity is one of the hottest fields available. There are hundreds of thousands of jobs. I believe the forecast is somewhere around...

between three and 500,000 current cybersecurity job openings. And that is anticipated to grow certainly by the year 2025. So we're going to need a workforce that is inclusive, that has the opportunity for varied thoughts so that we can avoid blind spots and pitfalls.

that allows all of us to work together to solve these problems. And the other thing about cybersecurity is that it is adaptive. So it is changing every day. As soon as we get a fix for one particular exposure area, the hackers figure out a way to introduce a new one around it. So it's going to take us constantly working together, the good actors working together to help combat the forces of evil

And I think this is where education can be so pivotal to make sure that we have that diverse workforce who has the right training. And so you've said before that education is the great equalizer in a world that is not always fair. Tell me a little bit more what you mean by that statement.

Oh, wow. I live by that statement. I do feel that education can help one overcome poverty. Education can help expose individuals to new opportunities. As part of our college specifically, we have a goal of poverty elimination.

And I firmly believe that using education will help individuals who may not have been afforded access to economic benefits growing up, learning,

New items, new areas, especially in these high demand areas, can certainly help one secure jobs. Education has also been proven to help with discipline problems. It's been proven to help to mitigate crime.

It's been proven to help individuals think differently about and to appreciate the world that we live in. And that's why I believe education clearly is something that can help cure many of the ills that currently exist in the world today. I agree with you completely about this philosophy, but I'm curious how that philosophy applies to your work with IBM and Southern University System.

Well, the IBM initiative clearly introduces just a whole array of technology assets to our university community. So I'm a firm believer. Another mantra that I have is that there is no business without technology and no technology without business. So as such, these assets and the training that is provided are

helps, especially here in the College of Business, which is where I sit. I am firmly of the belief that all of our business majors need technology as a foundation. So

My business majors learn about artificial intelligence. They are learning about chat GPT and the other GPTs that are out there even as we speak. They need to understand cloud computing because everything that we do today touches the cloud in some way. They need to understand the

The role cybersecurity plays in having a strong zero trust posture is important, regardless of what industry that they're working in. Understanding data science and how to get insights out of data so that you can make better decisions and you can solve bigger problems is extremely important. Design thinking.

which touches on creative problem solving, critical thinking, specifically from a customer perspective, is very important if you're going to help, in my view, create a better customer experience for the clients that you serve out there. And again, everything we do, including our podcast today, is touching the Internet of Things.

And I won't even get into quantum computing. That's not I'm not an expert in that space, but I will tell you a lot's happening there as well. So introducing our university family to these in-demand technologies to me is a priority and it's it's part of my purpose being here.

I mean, it's clear you're bringing the work that you did with IBM, you know, into your role as a professor and kind of training the students. But I'm curious how your work with IBM shaped your initial desire to go into academia in the first place. Well, that's an interesting question, Laura. My parents were educators.

So learning has always been at the forefront of my life when it comes down to it. I still remember my dad, who was a football coach in a small town in North Louisiana called Bastrop, Louisiana, would take me to games or would have me sit in his class. Same with my mom, primarily taught at the elementary school level and still does a lot of work

in our hometown in North Louisiana, they really, truth be told, helped shape my desire to always continually learn and the importance of education. In fact, I tell people to this day that I didn't realize I had a choice of going to college or not going to college. I always thought,

You know, it was part of that progression that I didn't realize until after I graduated from college that really I could have chosen not to go to college. So I'm glad that I did not make that choice, but I never realized I had a choice in the matter. So that and then jumping into IBM from the first day that I joined IBM in Tampa, Florida, with with the IBM Information Network at that time, we were immersed in education.

We were always being encouraged to learn. Learning equals growth. Learning equals promotional opportunities. Learning equals just, in a sense, happiness. So I get joy when I'm learning.

And that's helped with my desire to share what I've gained from my experiences with IBM with my students, with my peers and colleagues, with my bosses here at Southern University and other HBCUs as well. And so walk me through an example of how this partnership really comes to life in the classroom. Well, I'll give you a pretty recent example. We recently sponsored here on the campus a

a symposium, and we called that symposium CyberTIP. So C-Y-B-E-R dash T-I-P. And the TIP stands for Talent Initiative Program. And we used our partnership with IBM to introduce cybersecurity concepts to virtually every college on campus and every discipline.

And we brought together students, we advertised it, brought students together and challenged them to come up with different cybersecurity topics in a variety of areas. So we had ag majors.

We had nursing majors. We had engineers, civil engineers, mechanical engineers. We had finance, accounting. All disciplines basically were challenged to come up with a cybersecurity related topic that they could relate to. And we awarded the top 10 presentations. So there were 50 presentations. The top 10 received additional recognition.

And believe it or not, Laurie, I was blown away. A student that I mentored who is a freshman female received the top prize. And she did the cybersecurity and supply chain. And she was a business major. So you would almost think cybersecurity, that's going to be somebody in sciences and engineering and so on and so on. But a freshman student.

did a topic on cybersecurity and supply chain, her minor is supply chain management, and she actually was awarded the top presentation. So I was extremely excited. Another one that got high ratings was cybersecurity in the fashion industry. And then you had cybersecurity with regard to plant sciences and agriculture. And then to see the creativity with the students and how they researched the topics

And their skill in presenting, their skill in responding to questions, their skill in saying, hey, here's the problem. Here are some recommended solutions just to see that growth happen.

made me extremely happy. I love hearing about the breadth with which they're using cybersecurity in the classroom that you can apply it in ag or in fashion in all these domains. It also means that students who leave, who maybe not going into cybersecurity themselves, will understand the problems that come up in whatever industry they're in. Exactly. But you've also been using IBM SkillsBuild for coursework and certification. Can you tell us a little more about what SkillsBuild is and how you've leveraged all these resources?

We use SkillsBuild specifically to augment our existing courses. For example, I taught a business analytics course this past semester. That business analytics course uses IBM SkillsBuild data science course as its course content. I use all of the modules. There are eight to nine modules that touch on landscape, data science, case studies,

The future trends touches on all of those things. I use it as both an eight week course and a 16 week course, depending on the modality that is delivered. When they exit that course, they not only exit with three credit hours. If they exit the course successfully completing the course content, I should say, they not only exit with three credit hours in data science or data analytics. They also receive a stackable credential.

and data analytics, which they can, of course, take with them. They can share it on LinkedIn. They can share it on Facebook or Twitter or basically use it to showcase the skills that they require in that space. And the same occurs with cybersecurity, with cloud and with the other SkillsBuild offerings. SkillsBuild also touches in other areas such as mindfulness.

SkillsBuild has courses on entrepreneurship, which is extremely important to our College of Business as we try to push and promote an entrepreneurial mindset.

as we try to push and promote financial literacy, as we work to encourage digital literacy. And we actually use SkillsBuild as part of many of our community initiatives. So our surrounding community and the world, we've introduced SkillsBuild to them also. And now that I think about it, Laurie, we've actually, we did a trip to Ghana last June. We'll be going back this June.

The most popular session of the trip was when I introduced our Ghanaian colleagues to SkillsBuild because it is international. I introduced them to SkillsBuild. They allowed me to teach one of the classes. This is an extremely large university. It's Kedness, Kwama, and Kruma University of Science and Technology. I introduced it to a class and within a week,

Within a week, we had over 300 students that had taken the design thinking course, which is a two hour self-paced course of 14 lessons. Over 300 students had taken the course. By the time I returned to the U.S. a couple of weeks later, over 800 students had taken the course. So the impact of skills build and the exposure,

to these technologies and these stackable credentials, to me, has not just a U.S. impact, but it has a global impact. I love how excited Derek gets when he talks about teaching. He has a genuine passion for exposing others to new knowledge they otherwise wouldn't encounter. And it's remarkable that he's using IBM Skills Build to do that work internationally, be it the cybersecurity of fashion in Louisiana or design thinking in Ghana.

As Derek will explain to Laurie in a moment, that exposure, those first-time experiences, can spark a newfound creativity in a person. Let's listen on as Derek gets into the creative aspect of his work as an educator.

So this season of Smart Talks with IBM is focused on the new creators, these visionaries who are creatively applying technology and business to drive change. Do you see your work as creative? Oh, without a doubt. And I'm not trying, I'm not bragging when I say that. I hope I don't sound like I'm bragging, but I really do believe that this has allowed me to level up. Okay.

to say the least. So I think I'm a creator of innovative and enhanced educational experiences.

for our students, for my peer faculty, for our deans and provosts, and even our university president, chancellor, and the other chancellors on our other four campuses. And so when you speak to your students, how does diversity help cultivate creativity within this field of cybersecurity in particular? Well, it cultivates creativity clearly because it helps students

us understand each other, I believe. One of my greatest experiences, and this occurred when I was with IBM, IBM afforded me the opportunity of living abroad for over seven years. I lived in Tokyo for over a year. I lived in Shanghai for two plus years. I lived in Johannesburg, South Africa for

for a little over a year, helping a large multinational corporation prepare for the World Cup. And then I returned to the U.S. and did additional two years working with various clients of IBM's and then went back to Shenzhen, China. And so that exposure was

to different cultures, to diverse cultures, to individuals, because some people think of diversity as black and white. It's not. Diversity includes thinking, ways of thinking. Diversity is much more than just skin color and human beings. Diversity is in learning. It's in education.

It's like you said just now, it's in cyber security because right now the things that we are being hit with from a cyber standpoint, I was just reading that ChatGBT got hit with a cyber attack. It was hacked. It had to be taken down for a minute. So it's going to really involve us continuously being creative and

in order to proactively address problems of the day, as well as reactively address those that we can't anticipate that are certainly going to happen as we move forward as educators. We've been talking so much about how you've used creativity in the classroom, but as a college professor myself, I know that one of the perks of being in academia is that your students go off and they do all these amazing things in the real world.

And so I'm curious if you've ever interacted with students after graduation. Have they taken this principle of creativity and applied it in their own work life? And if so, can you share some stories? Oh, without a doubt, without a doubt. And a couple of my students that I'm extremely proud of, this student was out of our law center. One of our law students who took the, in fact, they took cybersecurity and I believe they took the data science courses. After taking those courses,

She developed and has developed, and it's now in its second year, a journal of IP law and technology. She created a journal. She created it as a student, was the first editor, of course, of the journal. And now that journal is going into its second or third year. To hear her say that our courses and this partnership with IBM are

inspired her to create that journal as a law student is probably one of my proudest accomplishments. The other accomplishment I'd like to mention is I get emails from students regularly that say, hey, I completed the IBM Skills Build course in cyber or in data science or in AI. I added it to my LinkedIn profile. And hey, I'm getting calls from

A variety of companies, Google and Microsoft and Adobe and Meta, all these different companies now, because, as you know, companies are using AI to kind of peruse through LinkedIn for keywords. But because they've taken these and completed these digital credentials, these stackable credentials, they're getting job opportunities. And one in particular said because of.

the digital credential that they added, they were able to get promotional opportunities. So I've had several that have written me to thank me and say, "Listen, thanks for bringing this to us because I just received a new promotion. I got a new job." So hearing that from our graduates and seeing that they're using what they're gaining through this partnership for their growth and success has been extremely fulfilling for me. That's great.

And so you've said before that if you're not uncomfortable, you're not learning. How do you apply this philosophy to your own life? And how do you encourage others, especially your students, to go outside their comfort zone? Well, that quote actually was derived from a quote that I heard Jenny Rometty, who was IBM's first female CEO, who I admire greatly. She said, growth and comfort cannot coexist.

And when you think about it, it can't. I mean, you've got to get uncomfortable. You know, I tell my students all the time, you're going to suffer pain. You can suffer the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

And I certainly would prefer to go through discipline than regretting something that I did. So I really, well, I'll give you a story. When I was first offered the assignment in Tokyo and my family and I were in Tokyo, we arrived in Tokyo. Of course, Tokyo is one of the largest, if not the largest city metropolitan area in the world with 30 plus million people. We got there. It was intimidating.

extremely intimidating. Well, during that week, while we were kind of huddled in our apartment, I remember hearing a presentation around the question, when was the last time you did something for the first time? So I took that question and I created a challenge with my family. It was a family challenge. And that family challenge was, listen, every week,

We're going to have first time experiences. We're here in Tokyo. It's a brand new place. We're going to have first time experiences. And then we're going to do report outs or playbacks at the end of the week during family meetings. So my daughter and I were the two that really took on the challenge. She's pretty competitive now. She's a PR exec in New York to this day. But she and I, she was fifth grade at the time. But she and I took the challenge and

And so we used it to meet new people. We used it to explore and go different places. We used it just to have new experiences. And it piqued our curiosity. It encouraged our competitive spirits. But most importantly, we just grew. We learned so much through that challenge. Through that, I climbed Mount Fuji in Tokyo.

I walked two hours on the Great Wall of China.

I was having so many first time experiences, I started losing count because they were occurring just on the hour, especially when I lived abroad. And when I think about it now, that's how I encourage my students to get creative and stay creative by just seeking out those first time experiences, by using their curiosity to grow and to learn and most importantly, to have fun.

And so it's clear even from this short conversation that you have found your purpose in kind of teaching everybody these amazing skills. And I know that one of your mantras is find your purpose. But I'm curious how you encourage your own students to find their purpose. Well, one exercise that I have students go through is I ask them a question. And normally they're puzzled by this question. And that question, Laurie, is what's your genius?

So when they say, I don't know what I want to do, I don't know what I want to major in, I don't know what I want to do in life. I say, well, tell me this. What's your genius? And they say, genius? What do you mean genius? You mean my IQ? I say, no, what's your genius? And your genius is the intersection of what you love and what you're good at.

So I asked them, tell me what you love. Tell me some things that you love. And they may say, oh, I love video games or I love watching television. I love traveling. I love math. Then I asked them, I said, what are you good at? And then they step back and say, well...

I'm good at helping people. I'm good at communicating. I'm good at this. And I say, well, your genius is the intersection of that because you may love basketball, but might not be good at it. So I would encourage you to I would basically say that's probably not your genius. But if you can find that intersection of what you love and what you're good at, that can lead you to your purpose. And that's what led me to mine.

I enjoy being with people. I enjoy helping people learn. I enjoy the environment of colleges, high schools and beyond. I enjoy seeing the sparkle in a student's eyes when they have an aha moment of when they've been able to accomplish a credential or learn something. It's nothing like it. And it really excites me a lot.

Derek, this was a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for all the amazing work that you're doing at HBCUs and beyond. It was my pleasure. And I'm a big fan, Laurie, of your podcast now. I'm a subscriber. Well, now we're going to have to get you on to talk about purpose on the Happiness Lab. So stay tuned. All right. Derek left us just now with a piece of wisdom I'd like to reflect on. That genius is the intersection of what you love and what you're good at.

For students and young people still finding themselves, sometimes it takes a little help to discover where their talents and passions lie.

By introducing his students to cybersecurity, Derek is trying to show that a person's genius intersection might exist somewhere they've never been before. Which is why Derek's philosophy about first experiences is so relevant. It's only when we branch out into the unfamiliar that we gain a deeper understanding of ourselves. That kind of self-discovery leads to the diversity of thought, culture, and perspective that workplaces are hungry for.

be it in cybersecurity or beyond. What's important is that we challenge ourselves to continue exploring the unknown and find that genius that is unique to each of us.

Smart Talks with IBM is produced by Matt Romano, David Jha, Nisha Venkat, and Royston Reserve with Jacob Goldstein. We're edited by Lydia Jean Cott. Our engineers are Jason Gambrell, Sarah Bruguere, and Ben Tolliday. Theme song by Gramascope. Special thanks to Carly Migliore, Andy Kelly, Kathy Callahan, and the 8 Bar and IBM teams, as well as the Pushkin Marketing team.

Smart Talks with IBM is a production of Pushkin Industries and iHeartMedia. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. This is a paid advertisement from IBM.