The Future of Human Capital in Cybersecurity

On 4 June, the National Cyber Summer Event took place in The Hague. Theme of the event was ‘The Future of Human Capital in Cybersecurity’ with a focus on the role of education and a skilled workforce in cybersecurity. The event, organised by dcypher in collaboration with ACademic Cyber Security Society (ACCSS) and Cyberveilig Nederland (CVNL), provided the opportunity to attend presentations and to network.

During this event, Fadime Keçe from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy invited the cybersecurity field to work together on solving the talent shortage. Furthermore, Mark Ruijsendaal & Jasmijn Al Kenany from Security Delta (HSD) and Ben Kokkeler & Leontien Kalverda from Centre for Security and Digitalisation (CVD) were also present, and collaborately gave presentations about current and upcoming Human Capital Agenda Security initiatives.

Collaboratively with the CVD, dcypher and a range of private sector partners Security Delta (HSD) plans to organise a consistent programmatic package of activities. It is crucial that regional needs of employers are continuously coupled to sector specific approaches, thematic developments and national level interventions.

Mark Ruijsendaal, Innovation Liaison HSD: "This approach taps into the energy and execution power that is distributed between many actors. We expect that it can play an pivotable role in the implementation of the policy that the Ministry of Economic Affairs has just published regarding the urgent need to raise the number of ICT and cybersecurity experts."

 
SecurityTalent.nl
During the event Mark emphasises the need to collaborate and align initiatives in this area. He also highlighted one example: SecurityTalent.nl, where hundreds of needs and offers come together and facilitate 75.000+ interactions. The platform provides an overview of jobs, internships, education, training and career navigator.

Mark Ruijsendaal: “With this platform we want to contribute to the Human Capital challenges the community faces by creating transparency and accessibility of the security education and labour market. In addition, we want to grow attractiveness of the security field and provide insight in the labour market developments with this platform”.

Check out this poster with facts & figures about Security Talent.

Research & Innovation hub
Ben Kokkeler attracted a lot of attention from the attendees by introducing them to the activities of the Centre for Security and Digitalisation. He emphasises that expanding the digital safety & security workforce is their mission, in close collaboration with HSD and dcypher.

To do so, CVD as a network organisation develops collaborative programmes between vocational and higher education & research institutions, the Dutch Police Academy and the Netherlands Institute for Public Safety (NIPV). In addition, they closely collaborate on a daily base with safety & security teams within the police force, fire brigades and public safety regions to make a real difference in everyday practice.

Ben Kokkeler, director CVD: “In cooperation with HSD and dcypher, we currently organise a consistent package of vocational and higher education programme, that is embedded in research and is being extended in a portfolio of LLL modules and learning communities. We are convinced that our cooperation with employers associations in industry and the EDIHs, and the public safety organisations offers important potential for execution of the recently announced HCA ICT policy of the Ministry of Economic Affairs.”

Check out this poster with facts & figures about CVD.

Collaboration
The representations of HSD and CVD at the National Cyber Summer Event is a result of their Human Capital Agenda Security, which was developed with broad involvement from some 70 parties from all over the Netherlands and executed by many more. It is supported by the strategic alliance collaboration signed in June 2023 by HSD and CVD. By joining forces both parties want to strengthen the execution power on cybersecurity labour market bottlenecks and increase the cyber resilience of the Netherlands.