Shielded by the Melting Pot: How Diversity & Inclusion Improve U.S. National Security and Resilience

America is defined from its “Melting Pot” shared culture forged from diverse backgrounds, ideologies, and people. America's diversity defines its strength and makes it unique in the great-power competition of the global stage. Conflicts in cyberspace and cyber-physical boundaries jeopardize national security and stability and the U.S. is at an asymmetric disadvantage against digital adversaries of all categories of sophistication, from nation-state sponsored advanced persistent threat groups (APTs) to cybercriminals to script kiddies. At the time of this writing, the U.S. nearly 600,000 cybersecurity positions remain unfilled and there are an estimated 3.5 million that may be unfilled by 2025. Just as the nation relies on its diversity to respond to military conflicts and overcome national crises, we too can leverage our national diversity to address the cyber talent shortage, secure critical infrastructure, and improve national resiliency. This publication explains how diversity and inclusion efforts can improve national security and resilience, strategies to increase inclusion efforts, and the diverse viewpoints of ICIT’s valued community of thought leaders. ICIT would like to thank the following experts for their contributions to this paper:

• Dr. Lenora Peters Gant, National Security Fellow & Senior Executive Advisor at Howard University

• Stan Mierzwa, ICIT Fellow & Director and Adjunct Professor, Center for Cybersecurity, Kean University & CTO, Vennue Foundation

• Don Maclean, ICIT Fellow & Chief Cybersecurity Strategist, DLT

• Dr. Barry C. West, ICIT Fellow & Former Acting CIO, DHS

• Joyce Hunter, ICIT Executive Director & Former Interim CIO and Deputy CIO, USDA

• Malcolm Harkins, ICIT Fellow & Chief Security and Trust Officer, Epiphany Systems

• Jim Routh, ICIT Fellow & Chief Security Advisor, Virsec

• Don Heckman, ICIT Fellow & Defense Cyber Solutions Leader & Director, Cybersecurity Solutions, Guidehouse

• M.K. Palmore, Director, Office of the CISO, Google Cloud

• Itzik Kotler, ICIT Fellow & Co-Founder and CTO, SafeBreach

• Teddra Burgess, ICIT Fellow & Senior Vice President Public Sector, Tanium

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