On Tuesday, March 30, Lviv Polytechnic National University successfully passed the selection and became a participant of the USAID international project «Cyber Security of Critical Infrastructure of Ukraine». In total, only 14 higher education institutions from Ukraine were selected for the project. The results were announced online.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the US federal government. It is responsible for US non-military assistance to other countries. The project aims to make Ukraine’s strategically important infrastructure more resilient to cyber-attacks by building a relationship of trust and cooperation between key cyber security stakeholders representing the authorities, private business, the scientific community and civil society. The project covers several important components:
- strengthening Ukraine’s cyber resilience via close cooperation with the Government of Ukraine, in particular the Ministry of Digital Transformation, the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection and the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine;
- forming Ukrainian human resources in the field of Cyber Security:
- supporting universities to increase cyber security professionals and improve the quality of their education;
- upskilling cyber security experts via educational and practical trainings;
- establishing relationships between Ukrainian HEIs and the international academic community;
- cyber security market development;
- support for the launch of an updated State Center for Special Communications and Information Protection.
The USAID project «Cyber Security of Critical Infrastructure of Ukraine» is the first USAID bilateral cyber security project for 4 years, with a total budget of $ 38 million. It provides for the creation of modern cyber polygons and Cyber Security Summer Schools in selected higher education institutions, which will provide practical training for teachers with partners from universities and companies in the United States and Ukraine. The group of project partners includes: Florida International University, Information Systems Security Partners, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Catalisto, Veterans First Initiative, SocialBoost and others.
– For Lviv Polytechnic this is an extremely important step in improving the quality of educational and scientific components of cyber security and ensuring cyber security of critical infrastructure facilities in Ukraine as a whole, – said the project coordinator in our University, Professor Ivan Opirskyi, Department of Information Security, the Institute of Computer Technologies, Automation and Metrology.
