 faced by underserved communities, insufficient or unclear incentives for collaboration between key stakeholders, or particular local and state education policies. E NABLE THE L IFELONG D EVELOPMENT OF C YBER S KILLS Every American should have lifelong opportunities to acquire cyber skills, beginning with foundational cyber skills. Today, such skills are what literacy has long been—a source of empowerment in work and life. They help people meet workforce demands and enable full access to the benefits of our interconnected society. With foundational cyber skills — digital literacy, computational literacy, and digital resilience — individuals develop technical skills, the ability to draw on multi-disciplinary perspectives to understand security, ethical, and societal issues, and the ability to adapt with rapid changes in technology. (See Figure 4 and Appendix B.) Those who work in industries such as manufacturing, space, health care, retail, finance, Figure 4. Foundational Cyber Skills utilities, and construction require additional industry-specific or occupation-specific cyber skills. Education and training systems, including those offered by employers, should equip Americans with the skills to work efficiently, effectively, safely, and securely. For example, participants in the software development process—from business leaders to software developers and product managers—must be equipped to manage the security and privacy implications of the software they create. A model can be found in the Department of Energy’s 2022 National Cyber-Informed Engineering Strategy, which recognizes the need to incorporate cybersecurity principles into engineering work from the earliest to the final stages.25 G ROW AND E NHANCE THE C YBER W ORKFORCE T HROUGH I MPROVEMENTS IN D IVERSITY AND I NCLUSION To advance our collective prosperity, security, and well-being, we must draw on the full diversity of the American talent pool. Improvements in diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in cybersecurity have tremendous potential to strengthen the cyber workforce,26 including gains in innovation,27 creative problem solving,28 improved decision making,29 and profitability.30 It can improve recruitment even more broadly, as America’s younger generations increasingly expect and value robust DEIA practices in the workplace.31 One of the most effective ways to grow our supply of cyber talent is to attract people of all ages and all demographics from underrepresented communities, such as women, veterans, military spouses, people of color, first-generation 5 NATIONAL CYBER WORKFORCE AND EDUCATION STRATEGY