Dive Brief:

• Cisco announced a $10 million Global Cybersecurity Scholarship program Tuesday to help address the shortage of cybersecurity professionals.

• The two-year scholarship program will include training, mentoring and certification that align with a security analyst operations position, according to the announcement. 

• Cisco also announced it is adding a new Cyber Ops Certification to its portfolio of security certifications and revising its CCIE Security Certification.

Dive Insight:

Cisco will deliver the scholarship program in partnership with Cisco Authorized Learning Partners.

"Cybersecurity is essential to digital success,” said Jeanne Beliveau-Dunn, vice president and general manager, Cisco Services. “Many CEOs across the globe tell us their ability to innovate is hampered by their security concerns in the digital world. This creates a big future demand for skill sets that don't exist at scale today. We developed this scholarship program to help jump-start the development of new talent.”

Beliveau-Dunn said the hope is that the scholarship could also help "diversify the IT security industry" by inspiring a broad array of people to enter then field. 

"This is just a start to help us educate, train and reskill the job force to become the security IT professionals needed to help address this vast talent shortage," Beliveau-Dunn said.

There are only an estimated 50,000 computer science grads each year, with demand far outpacing supply. But cyber professionals are particularly in high demand. Federal agencies have struggled to attract the necessary talent and have labeled it an "at risk" occupation.