The Maryland Institute for Innovative Computing (MIIC) is unique in higher education in that it is designed to evolve as the needs of the State of Maryland change AND as technology changes. MIIC is not housed in one college or department, instead its focus is to link the resources of UMBC and the USM in support of challenges or opportunities faced by Maryland.
Today, we are working on these specific activities identified by the State in 2022. These are the following:
- Workforce development for state agencies, especially in technology. Through a partnership with UMBC Career Services that operates the Maryland Technology Internship Program (MTIP), MIIC is working to provide $250,000 a year in internships to students that will work in state agencies. In just two years, we have seen a number of students get hired into full-time positions.
- Cyber Security Training in K-12 and higher education. MIIC worked with Virginia Tech to provide Maryland K-12 and higher education access to the US Cyber Range. This service provides hands-on exercises designed to teach students real-world cyber-security skills. For more information, visit the US Cyber Range page.
- The MIIC is a partner with the Center for Cyber-Physical Systems to build a Cyber-Physical simulator for manufacturing. UMBC in partnership with the national digital manufacturing institute MxD, launched a new program to provide cybersecurity training for current manufacturing workers. MxD is one of 14 federally supported institutes known collectively as Manufacturing USA. UMBC and the Digital Manufacturing Institute (MxD) are developing a training platform, CyMOT that will revolutionize competency-based learning at the intersection of cybersecurity and manufacturing. CyMOT will upskill practitioners in the manufacturing industry in cybersecurity principles. CyMOT will help practitioners fill specific job roles in cybersecurity, manufacturing, and operational technology. CyMOT is built with personalized synchronous, asynchronous, and experiential training modules that will obviate the need for long tedious cybersecurity training.
- Advanced analytics for health care. In a partnership with UMBC’s Hilltop Institute, we have provided funding for researchers to analyze data related to opiod addiction and deaths that have been used to help improve outcomes and lower deaths.
These are a few of the efforts underway and we continue to have further discussions.