Red Hat’s David Egts: Open-Source Training, ‘Sense of Mission’ Could Help Agencies Address Cyber Skills Gap

David Egts, chief technologist for Red Hat’s North American public sector, has said there are several options the federal government can consider to build up its workforce’s cybersecurity and information technology skills and one of those is to explore open-source training.

“The proliferation of open source software has changed the training landscape dramatically,” Egts wrote in a Nextgov piece published Wednesday.

“In short, the open source community has put effective training on a number of topics, including cloud migration and deployment and cybersecurity, well within the reach of every agency and IT administrator.”

He called on agencies to look for certified professionals since certifications could help them “differentiate between those who are good at what they do and those who have a higher level of expertise.”

Another approach agencies can use to address the cyber skills gap and retain personnel is to instill among federal employees the “sense of mission,” Egts noted.