You can find our breakdown of ballot question one here, which asks: Should Rhode Island hold a constitutional convention?
TRANSCRIPT:
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Luis Hernandez: Nov. 5, Rhode Island voters will have the opportunity to weigh in on five statewide ballot questions. In the weeks leading up to Election Day, we’ll be covering each of those questions in depth. This time we focus on question two, which asks voters to approve a $160.5 million bond that would go towards capital improvements at two of the state’s higher education facilities. $87.5 million would be used to build a new biomedical sciences building at URI’s Kingston campus, and $73 million would help transform Whipple Hall at Rhode Island College into a home for the school’s fledgling Institute for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies. Today, we’re going to learn more about the second piece. I’m joined now by Jim Langevin, former Congressman and the Distinguished Chair at the Institute for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies at RIC. Mr. Langevin, thanks so much for the time.
Jim Langevin: You bet. Thanks for having me on.
Hernandez: The Institute for cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies at RIC was launched last fall. Tell us about what the Institute does.
Langevin: Well, we are basically training the next generation of cyber defenders and cyber professionals to defend our digital networks. I spent 22 years in Congress. Much of that time was focused on national security issues and, in particular, cybersecurity issues. I realized long ago that cybersecurity is, and will for the foreseeable future, be the national and economic security challenge of the 21st century. The problem is that we don’t yet have enough cyber professionals, cyber defenders, to do the jobs that we need done. Right now, there is some more than half a million jobs that go unfilled each year in cybersecurity. Thousands of those jobs are right here in Rhode Island that go on unfilled. The field of cybersecurity is one of the fastest growing fields. It’s expected to grow by about 10% each year in terms of the need for these cyber professionals.
Hernandez: How many students are enrolled right now in the college?
Langevin: In the cybersecurity program, it’s over a hundred, so it’s one of the fastest growing programs here on the Rhode Island College campus. We all know how important the internet is, how we rely on a digital infrastructure every day in our personal lives, in our professional lives. Unfortunately, there are bad actors out there who have taken advantage of our dependence on the internet. The internet, by the way, was never built with security in mind. It’s this free and open architecture. That was the way it was designed from the beginning. It’s very hard to layer security on top of it. There’s no easy fix. There’s no silver bullet. We’ll never be 100% cyber secure, but what we can do is we can narrow that aperture of vulnerability down to something that is much more manageable so that we are more secure than less secure and flip the narrative on the attackers who have the advantage right now. We’re making progress, but we still have a long way to go.
Hernandez: Is it kind of like the situation we saw recently with Providence Public Schools that was attacked by a ransomware attack? With cybersecurity, this would be dealing with that?
Langevin: Precisely. What we’re asking the voters to approve with this $73 million bond issue for Rhode Island College is to create this new state of the art cyber facility. This building would have two cyber ranges and also a security operations center. So think of the cyber range as like a command center, a self contained command center where students will learn in a simulated real world environment. There’ll be things like war gaming and hands-on practical scenarios where they will be practicing how to defend networks. If they make a mistake, that’s the time to learn, and they’re doing it in a self-contained environment. Beyond that, the Security Operations Center will provide 24-7 cybersecurity services to things like municipalities, school systems, and nonprofits, and perhaps even small businesses that traditionally do not have the resources to hire the cyber professionals they need or the cybersecurity programs that they need. We’d be able to do that at a much more affordable rate. There are other colleges and universities that are doing this around the country, and it’s a great model. So the Providence School System is a perfect example of how we would be able to work with a school system to help to better protect their cyber networks. And, by the way, we would have students as well as cyber professionals working in the Security Operations Center so that our students would be getting hands-on practical experience about how to be a cyber defender. So when they graduate from Rhode Island College, they’ll already have the experience that they need to start on day one to be an effective cyber professional. Again, very often they’d be going into a si- figure job.
Hernandez: So that $73 million bond, just to understand, is not just to modernize and create this big system that you’re talking about. The current location for the institute, is that space not suitable or is it just about modernizing that space?
Langevin: This space is a good first start, where we are right now. We’re renovating a classroom that will be our new cyber range. But to do this right and to match the 21st century programs and the technology that we have, we want to make sure that we have a state-of-the-art facility for the state-of-the-art programs that we’re offering to our students here at Rhode Island College. Again, it’s an investment in, not only our students and the college, but really it’s an investment in our state and our economy.
Hernandez: That’s $73 million, but that’s for Rick’s Cybersecurity Institute. It’s $160.5 million altogether. Does the state have the money to provide that money on this bond question that they’re asking for?
Langevin: Yeah, so the state effectively manages the bond programs. Sometimes it’s a combination; you’re paying down debt one year and then you’re adding new investment, new debt another part of the year. And so it’s balanced. You want to have a certain level of debt and it’s managed debt so that you’re paying as you’re going, and you can afford the investments that you’re making in things like infrastructure, like what we’re doing here at the college. … I’m excited about the future. I know the voters have always been very supportive of investments in higher education. We want to make sure that our students, when they graduate from a great institution like Rhode Island College, and also the bond issue is going to support the investment at URI, they understand that it’s an investment in our young people to help them pave their way to success and a successful career.
Hernandez: I’ve been speaking with Jim Langevin, former Rhode Island Congressman and the Distinguished Chair at the Institute for Cybersecurity and Emerging Technologies at Rhode Island College. Mr. Langevin, thanks so much for the time. I appreciate the insight.
Langevin: Thank you. Great to be with you.
Go here to see all five referenda questions on this year’s ballot, and click here for more information on when, where and how to vote in this year’s election.
Election 2024 coverage by The Public’s Radio is sponsored in part by Ascent Audiology & Hearing, Providence Picture Frame and Rustigian Rugs. Find more of our elections coverage at thepublicsradio.org/2024elections.
