Maria Martinez
WCS 494
12/02/2023
Journal 6
| Describe five businesses or non-profits that have been created in my field. There have been thousands of businesses created within the cybersecurity field. Cyware is an example of one of them, founded in 2016 with headquarters in Jersey City, New Jersey. This business focuses on product-based solutions that promote secure collaborations and enhance threat visibility. Its clients include healthcare, energy organizations, defense organizations, non-profits, governments, and more. Lacework is another business in this field that was founded in 2015 with headquarters in Mountain View, California. They collect, analyze, and correlate data across other organizations to help them have better security as well as use the data collected for the businesses they work for to have better marketing which results in more revenue based on the data they collect. GitGuardian is a cybersecurity startup that was founded in 2017 and is based out of Paris. They aim to solve the issue of secrets sprawling through source code. This business monitors public and private repositories, detects secrets, and alerts the companies that have hired them when any security issues are found. Beyond Identity is another business within this field, and it was founded in 2020 with their headquarters in New York. This business is something like an application that ODU uses called DUO. This company allows the employees of a company to log in a different way. Just one password is not enough to log into systems, and Beyond Identity ensures that multi-factor authentication is used. They replace a password with asymmetric cryptography that employs a public or private key to get into the system. There are very few non-profits within the cybersecurity field. One that I have seen is called Nonprofit Cyber. Their mission is to build awareness of the work that cybersecurity nonprofits on a global level, and then to align the work of them all to achieve the greatest and most impactful effect. What is your overall perspective on entrepreneurship experience? My overall perspective on entrepreneurship experience is that it can be extremely challenging, but also extremely rewarding. I knew that building a business or non-profit is very time-consuming, but I truly did not know how much goes into it. This class is perfect for giving me the experience of designing an entrepreneurial business and it broke it down step by step. Without this class I might have given up on my dream of one day building a business. While it has been my most difficult class so far due to all the issues everyone runs into with building and designing a business, it has also been very helpful in showing me how it will be when I do one day build my own business. Overall, my experience has confirmed my prior beliefs that it can be difficult, but that it will be worth it in the end. How did the entrepreneurship prepare or not prepare you to be a competitive candidate for vacant positions? This entrepreneurship has prepared me to be a competitive candidate for vacant positions in many ways. I have developed deeper and more complex problem-solving skills. My team and I have faced many complex challenges while designing our business, and we have had to come up with innovative solutions. I was also very lucky to have someone in my group that majors in leadership, and I have seen how she steps up to help lead our team when we need it. This has inspired me to be this way when I do create my business one day and even while I work other jobs in the time I am creating my business. Furthermore, I now understand how important leadership is within the entrepreneurial world. I have also built my knowledge greatly in this industry, which makes me more of a competitive candidate for roles in this industry. I have also learned how to network better because of this entrepreneurship class. Whether I am at work or the gym or the grocery store, I have learned that somebody in any of those places might have the right connections or advice I need to land a job, answer a question I have about building a business, etc. This entrepreneurship has taught me critical skills that I need in order to be a competitive candidate for vacant positions. |
| What suggestions do you have to improve the experience? I do not have any complaints or suggestions to improve the experience because I feel like it was well-laid out, explained well, numerous resources to utilize, as well as numerous people to reach out to for any questions or concerns while going through this experience. The only thing I would like would be more time because even having an entire semester I feel like there is always going to be more I could have added into my business and experience. However, I do understand that an entire semester is enough to learn the fundamentals and the skills I have mentioned in the previous paragraph. Overall, I feel like this was a very good experience. What’s next for you? It was always a goal of mine to create my own business one day, which is why I opted out of interning for a company and chose the entrepreneurial side for my semester. I will take everything I have learned so that in the future I can build my business to become a successful company. I also plan to go back to school for my master’s in cybersecurity as well as take some leadership classes now that I see how important it is to be a leader whether it is in the job I have or in my own business. |