NYCEDC Partners with Team8 to Strengthen City's Cyber NYC Initiative

Collaboration leverages cyber innovation expertise, global ecosystem of cyber leadership, and company's New York headquarters

NEW YORK, Nov. 5, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) and venture group Team8 today announced a strategic partnership to bolster New York City's cybersecurity ecosystem and workforce through the Cyber NYC initiative, a $100 million public-private investment to make New York City a global leader in cyber innovation and to catalyze 10,000 jobs. 'Team8 is building a hub for cyber talent at its New York headquarters where its portfolio companies are located, including a recently launched joint venture with Moody's to create a global standard for assessing cyber risk. Team8 joins Cyber NYC's existing operators CUNY, NYU, Cornell Tech and Columbia universities, SOSA, JVP and Fullstack, and partners, Goldman Sachs, PricewaterhouseCoopers, edX, amongst others.

NYCEDC's partnership with Team8 draws on the company's unique expertise in identifying, training and recruiting world-class R&D talent; bringing new technologies in the cyber, data and artificial intelligence domains to market; and access to insights from industry leaders. Founded by former leaders of Israel's elite military intelligence unit 8200, Team8 is dually headquartered in Tel Aviv and in Midtown Manhattan, New York and is backed by global powerhouses including Microsoft, Walmart, Moodys, Airbus, Scotiabank and Cisco, with former NSA Director Admiral (Ret.) Mike Rogers as a senior advisor. 

"New York City has quickly become the international capital for cybersecurity and a leader in tech innovation," said NYCEDC President and CEO James Patchett. "As we build on this success, EDC is excited to launch a partnership with Team8 as they grow a new cyber hub in New York City and lend their valuable expertise to our game changing Cyber NYC initiative.  We look forward to collaborating with Team8 on projects that help fuel the next generation of talent in the city's growing cyber and tech ecosystems."

Team8's Co-Founder and CEO Nadav Zafrir, former Commander of Israel's Intelligence Corps 8200, has joined Cyber NYC's advisory board to lend his expertise in building a cyber ecosystem with a focus on talent development. 

"We're really excited about our joint activities with EDC and we're honored to work with leaders from the ecosystem to establish New York City as a global cyber capital," says Nadav Zafrir. "We hope to foster a new level of excitement and prestige around cyber to drive the City's burgeoning tech ecosystem and cultivate exceptional, highly skilled talent." 

As mounting cybersecurity threats intensify, enterprises are struggling to fill the growing number of cybersecurity positions, leaving them vulnerable to potentially devastating attacks. The cybersecurity workforce gap is on pace to hit 1.8 million by 2022 and the sector enjoys a zero percent unemployment rate. Currently in New York, there are about 20,000 job openings in the cyber field. In a recent study, 69% of cyber professionals say their teams are understaffed and hiring managers say it can take over six months to find qualified cybersecurity candidates.

The EDC – Team8 partnership will focus on three tracks: Training and developing talent, growing New York City's cyber ecosystem and identifying the next big breakthrough idea from academia. To better prepare the workforce of the future, full-time and internship opportunities across both Team8 and its portfolio companies will be created for local talent in the group's New York City headquarters. Team8 is working with Columbia University's Inventors to Founders Initiative (I2F) on sourcing and evaluating projects to glean breakthrough technologies that can transform the industry and create a new wave of NYC cyber startups. Team8 will serve as mentors to the program and its companies, co-hosting accelerator events, research symposiums, and other ecosystem building programs. 

"Team8 has cultivated a unique model and process to bring exceptional teams together to solve tangible problems" says Adm. Mike Rogers. "This forward-thinking approach will provide a major boost to NY's cyber ecosystem when interpreted on city scale and I look forward to working with both parties to make it happen."

The company has already proven its ability to identify transformative scientific research and build applicable technology through Duality Technologies, whose privacy-enhancing technology is based on decades of research from Turing Award laureate and MIT Professor Shafi Goldwasser. Further extending its academic initiative, Team8 has created an elite cyber PhD program together with the University of Tulsa (TU), one of the country's principal private research institutions renowned for producing a top cyber talent stream. The four year doctoral degree is designed for students seeking to advance cyber R&D across security, big data and artificial intelligence, creating new methods and commercially viable solutions that enable a secure and productive all-digital future, enrolling from September 2020.

The NYCEDC-Team8 partnership is officially launching today at Team8's 5th annual Rethink event at the Nasdaq. Rethink is a closed forum for C-level executives to create a framework for open discussion on the mutual challenges they face across sectors and industries. The event's speakers include Justin Berman, CISO, Dropbox; Beth Smith, GM, IBM Watson; and James Patchett, NYCEDC President. 

About New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC)

New York City Economic Development Corporation creates shared prosperity across New York City's five boroughs by strengthening neighborhoods and creating good jobs. NYCEDC works with and for communities to provide them with the resources they need to thrive, and we invest in projects that increase sustainability, support job growth, develop talent, and spark innovation to strengthen the City's competitive advantage. To learn more about our work and initiatives, please visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or our Instagram.

About Cyber NYC

Cyber NYC, the City's $100M initiative to grow the cybersecurity sector, leverages a roster of world-renowned partners to launch a Global Cyber Center, to fuel commercialization, research, and new talent pipelines to train the cyber workforce of the future.

About Team8

Team8 is a venture group solving problems of magnitude. Leveraging its unrivalled military intelligence expertise, in-depth research capabilities, extensive C-level executive network and unique company building model, the group creates and accelerate category-leading companies. Team8 is backed by some of the world's most renowned businesses including Cisco, Microsoft, AT&T, Walmart, Airbus, Softbank, Accenture, Qualcomm, Moody's, Munich-Re, Dimension Data, Barclays, Nokia and Scotiabank. For more information, please visit www.team8.vc.

About Cyber NYC Inventors to Founders Initiative

Launched in Summer 2019, the Inventors to Founders Initiative (I2F) is an early stage startup accelerator and talent network for NYC cyber startups. Lead by the NYCEDC and Columbia University and in partnership with Cornell Tech, NYU and CUNY, I2F is developing targeted startup programs and funding structures to catalyze the commercialization of cutting-edge research.  The startup accelerator is open to academic-affiliated startups founded by students, faculty members and alumni of universities in New York. I2F plans to expand its accelerator network in coming years, adding in additional world-class academic partners.

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