HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — An up-and-coming school on Research Park is soon to open its doors to students across Alabama to study cyber technology and engineering!
On Monday, half a million dollars were donated to complete construction for the Alabama School for Cybertechnology and Engineering (ASCTE).
The campus is expected to open in August.
ASCTE leaders say the school began because of a shortage in the cyber resiliency industry. They hope this school will create a pipeline to close that gap.
ASCTE was created as a public-state magnet school just four years ago, and will soon become a brick-and-mortar campus thanks to partnerships in the industry.
“When we talk about these partnerships in that pipeline, our students are receiving apprenticeships and internships with those organizations before they ever graduate. So they are receiving hands-on, real-world experience,” said ASCTE Foundation Executive Director, PeggyLee Wright.
Wright said the school will contribute to Huntsville’s rapid growth and development.
“We’re bringing in hundreds of students from throughout the state of Alabama. In addition, this means their family is coming to Huntsville. They’re coming for long weekends. They’re coming for events. That pours into the economic growth of Huntsville. It also helps to continue to put us on the map in terms of cyber resiliency and the engineering life cycle and how we’re educating our youth,” said Wright.
A Radiance Technologies Board of Directors member said the $500,000 donation is an investment for our future.
“We want to be good stewards. We want to promote for the future. Let’s face it, the future of our nation really is going to rely on the boys and the girls, like the ones who are going to graduate from ASCTE,” said Radiance Technologies Board of Directors Director, Barbara Fast.
The opening of the school comes at a critical time as ransomware attacks are happening around the world.
“We have an obligation from a U.S. citizen's standpoint to protect our nation. But it’s not just about the cybersecurity that we think about with malware. This is looking at our supply chain. How do we build things that are important to the nation? How do we ensure that those are cyber secure when they’re built?,” added Fast.
The school’s partnerships just keep getting bigger. On February 22, ASCTE will sign an MOA to secure a partnership with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center.