Hey all - I am working with HackEd, a startup focused on creating the cybersecurity experts needed now. I'm basically the DM - some big cybersurity names are providing the curriculum and I'm making the 7 weeks an immersive story-based experience. It's sort of a Cyberpunk game made real.
Applicants have to do a coding challenge and submit a fairly tough application, and we select about 12 per running of the course. Towards the end of the course we bring in companies and government who have the best jobs in cybersecurity and work to place the students. The 12 people who get in don't pay for the training; they are on scholarship. If they get hired, the company who hires them pays us.
The immersive, story-based approach gives the students the closest thing to real-world experience possible, to address the catch-22 of needing experience to get hired so you can get experience. It gives them stories to tell interviewers. And it forces them to work together, to compete, and to be creative rather than just following a manual or doing script-kiddie stuff.
So that's the sales pitch. If you are interested, yay! If you know people who might be interested in going through this, send them the link? There will be 4 runnings of the course each year, and we are hoping to expand the number of students we can accept for the last two to maybe 15-20.
Thanks!