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10 n e w h a v e n B I Z | J a n u a r y 2 0 2 0 | n e w h a v e n b i z . c o m T R E N D I N G Q&A Companies in Connecticut and around the country are working feverishly to fortify their defenses against malicious hackers and cyber attacks. But in doing so, they face a severe shortage of technology professional trained to confront the cyber menace. Ibrahim (Abe) Baggili, the Elder family endowed chair of computer science and cybersecurity at the University of New Haven, spearheads the university's nationally recognized cyber forensics lab. Under his leadership, UNH's cybersecurity program this year was awarded a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation and was designated a National Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Operations by the National Security Agency. How would you characterize Connecticut's preparedness against cyber attacks? We need to invest heavily in creating a cybersecurity culture in Con- necticut, which is yet to come. It needs to be a top priority across all business sectors. Many companies are not thinking about cybersecurity as much as they should be — or they're only thinking about it once they're attacked and it costs them a lot of money. There are many cities [in Connecticut] that have already been hit by cyber attacks — West Haven, Hamden — and I think the list is going to continue to grow. UNH was one of the first colleges in the Northeast to launch a cybersecurity program in 2013. What kind of demand is the program generating? We've had significant growth to the point where we're building bigger classrooms just to be able to hold our student population — and we're hiring more faculty, too. We're kind of like a lean startup that has so much demand and we're trying to figure out what we're going to do [to satisfy it]. I always tell students that if you're interested, you need to apply very early. Yet there still are 2,600 unfilled cybersecurity jobs in Connecticut. What else can be done? We need to create a pipeline when people are young to get them inter- ested. Our method and our approach is not only about the college pro- gram. We're reaching out to students in high school. We're trying to get high school students to think about cybersecurity as a career because the market demand is huge. There are expected to be 3.5 million job openings worldwide by 2021 and we don't have enough [workers] to sustain it. You've cautioned against schools rolling out new cybersecurity programs too precipitously. Why? First, you have to hire the right faculty to teach these courses. You can't develop a real cybersecurity program without having real cybersecurity professionals teaching the courses. And those people cost a lot of money, because you're competing with industry [to hire and retain them]. My undergraduate students are starting at $100,000 a year. An assistant professor gets paid $80,000 to $90,000 a year. Universities embarking on this journey need to really get it in their heads that if you can't pay the faculty enough money, you're not going to have a great program. n — Natalie Missakian Confronting the cyber threat Anthony Price of Middletown is an entrepre- neur — founder and CEO of LootScout, which counsels small and fledg- ling companies on how to scout for loot. Now he's an author, too. He recently published Get the Loot & Run: Find Money for Your Business. It's a subject about which Price knows a thing or two: e book project was funded by a Kickstarter campaign. As such he is comfortable with both the theory and practice of using OPM (Other People's Money) to build wealth by creating profitable enterprises. Price draws a clear distinction be- tween entrepreneurs and small-business owners. If one accepts the SBA definition of "small" business (fewer than 500 em- MAKING BOOK ON BUSINESS For finding 'OPM', Price is right Abe Baggili WHAT'S YOUR SIGN? The cost of keeping the faith Connecticut isn't the Bible Belt, but motorists who travel on I-95 have observed that the interstate is "belted" with Christian billboard messages. These range from the benign ("The Holy Bible: Truth. Wisdom. Hope.") to the more confrontational ("If You Die Tonight — Heaven or Hell?") The messages are the handiwork of GospelBillboards.org, a 50-state initiative of Christian Aid Ministries. Besides spreading the gospel, the group provides food and services to the needy, crisis aid, education and (of course) Bibles to the faithful. Billboard advertising is expensive. Along I-95, boards can cost $10,000 a month. We don't think of religious groups as being big spenders. (The expression "poor as a church mouse" comes to mind.) Like many advertising companies, Barrett Outdoor offers reduced rates for non-profits and PSAs. According to Barrett's Richard Dow, Christian Aid Ministries has been a customer for years. Comparable boards rent for about $7,000 monthly, but CAM gets a volume discount for buying 12 months at a time, and also qualifies for the non-profit discount — though he declines to say exactly what they pay. Dow regards the content of the Christian message with equanimity. "We're not in the censorship business," he says. "Unless it's hate speech or pornography, we're in the freedom-of-speech business." n ployees) then most company principals are small-business owners. But not all are entrepreneurs. Price channels George Bernard Shaw ("All progress depends on the unreasonable man") to illustrate the difference: "Entre- preneurs are the unreasonable men — risk-takers, but not gamblers." So they create their own jobs, and their own enterprises to support them. To do that, they need a plan, a model for the business they intend to create. "A busi- ness model must solve a pain point for customers and create value at a desirable price point," Price writes. And it needs dollars to launch — either from the entrepreneur's own piggy bank, or OPM. In the end it doesn't matter, re- ally, where the startup capital comes from — as long as it comes. It takes money to make money, a sage man once observed. Or, the words of another noted sooth- sayer, LL Cool J: "People are successful because of what they do right. n

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