Building the Next Generation of Cyber Professionals (with Dr. Ashley Podhradsky)

What does it take to make cybersecurity feel like it's for everyone? Dr. Ashley Podhradsky has spent her career answering that question. 

In this episode, Andy and Brandi sit down with the Vice President for Research and Economic Development & Co-Founder of CybHER at Dakota State University to talk about building the next generation of cyber professionals, why curiosity matters more than math scores, and what parents and business leaders alike need to know about the technology shaping daily life.

Dr. Podhradsky is a professor of digital forensics, co-founder of CybHER, and one of 120 women honored at the Smithsonian for excellence in STEM. Her research teams have secured more than $26.5 million in competitive grants and contracts from organizations including the NSA, NSF, and Google.

:00 - Introduction & welcome
 1:52 - Dr. Podhradsky's credentials & what DSU is building
 4:43 - Partnering with businesses, small governments & CISA
 9:10 - The CybHER camps: hands-on cyber for K-12
 15:11 - Why "are you curious?" beats "are you good at math?"
 18:39 - Tech responsibility for kids — and the digital mistake you can't undo
 22:58 - Gaming consoles, drones & digital forensics
 26:55 - End-to-end encryption and its unintended consequences
 29:14 - The sextortion crisis every parent should know about
 31:00 - DSU's student pipeline: 99.9% placement rate
 33:04 - Competitions, hackathons & the MIT Bitcoin win
 35:03 - Launch question from the jar 

🗨️ Mentioned in this episode: 

Learn more about Dr. Podhradsky: dsu.edu/directory/podhradsky-ashley.html 

CybHER cyber outreach program: gencybergirls.camp

DSU Beacom College of Computer and Cyber Sciences: dsu.edu

Secure SD / Project Boundary Fence: madlabs.dsu.edu/digforce/boundary-fence

Google Cybersecurity Clinic at DSU: dsu.edu/news/2025/06/cybersecurity-clinic-grand-opening.html

Bark — parental monitoring app mentioned by Dr. Podhradsky: bark.us

Connect with Dr. Ashley Podhradsky:
linkedin.com/in/ashley-podhradsky-64312032

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Kick us off, sir. You're the leader of this one. Am I? Am I? You absolutely are.

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

So I'll just kind of throw this question out to the universe. Are you curious? Do you like to know what's happening and what's coming? What's exciting? Do you like to happen? Would you like a high-paying, interesting job with lots of opportunities? Toss those questions out to the universe. Excuse me. I think it's to you now.

SPEAKER_02 0:39

All right. Well, I will catch the question that you have just uh thrown upon me. That's what we're getting to the point of today, folks, is how to be curious. And our guest today is an incredible human being who I absolutely adore. And she has spent a lot of her time really building the next generation of people who feel like cybersecurity is for them, feel like information technology is for them. And so leading young people just in an incredible way. And I can't wait for you guys to hear from our next guest. This is Get to the Point.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Welcome to the Get to the Point Podcast, the podcast where we talk to real IT people about real IT stuff, and we try to dig in behind the tech that's all around us every day and make it a little bit more human.

unknown 1:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

I'm Andy Middlemas.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

I'm Brandy Mentley. And today we are welcoming Dr. Ashley Potorowski. And I there's a lot. I have like a two or one and a half page uh write-up on you here, and I'm gonna read this for our listeners because we're gonna we're gonna set the stage for how incredible our next guest is. Uh Ashley is the vice president for research and economic development at Dakota State University, a professor of digital forensics, and the co-founder of Cybe Her, a cyber outreach program that has reached thousands of people from K-12 through college and beyond. Her research teams have secured more than 26 and a half million in competitive grants and contracts for organizations including NSA, NSF, and Google. She serves on the board of directors for First Bank and Trust, was appointed by Governor Roden to the Governor's Resilience and Infrastructure Task Force, and has been honored at the Smithsonian as one of 120 women recognized for excellence in STEM. Whew, I just got goosebumps. Ashley, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Tell me something good.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Well, thank you for having me. And uh something good. Right now we have 100 kids on campus, high school juniors and seniors that are learning about cybersecurity at camp. And next week we have our 13th camp for middle school girls. Oh, that's incredible. That is something good. It is.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Yeah, I'm excited for that. I love that. You know, digging into this episode, Ashley, I did a little research on Dakota State University. Someone is going to fact uh fact check me, which is our executive producer, Jasmine. And before I dig into these facts, there are two individuals that I want to recognize today. Alex Connor is the man behind he's constantly, you know, making sure our mics are together and that the episodes are edited. He's just an incredible, talented human. And Jasmine, our executive producer, who keeps us absolutely on track. But the reason why I want to recognize them today, they should be recognized every day because they're amazing. But today they got up at five o'clock this morning and they drove four o'clock. Okay, sorry. Jasmine is correcting me. She is not a morning person. Alex does not care because he is a morning person, but 4 a.m. to be here with us today so that we could bring this episode to you. So thank you both for being here and getting up so early. Thank you. Okay. So, all right, did a little digging. Someone's gonna fact check me, but okay. So this was primarily a teacher's college, Dakota State College, in fact. And in 1984, the late governor Bill Janklo signed a law that every program needed to have some element of technology called a brand new day. Then, after that, shortly, Citibank moves into Sioux Falls and they needed programmers. 2004, the NSA recognized DSU as a center for academic excellence, one of 10. 2017, Mad Labs, the tech research was born. And now you guys have a Sioux Falls campus going up as well. Ashley, this is amazing. Um, can you tell us, bring us to current state? What are you building at DSU that and why does it matter?

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah, and that history is incredible. Um our first president after the mission change was from City, and having that intentional partnership between emerging areas of critical infrastructure, in this case a finance industry, in the way that technology and all areas of security is integrated into it. Um, that's what we're building. When you think about when you wake up in the morning until you go to bed at night, nearly your entire day is driven by technology. You're probably woken up from your phone or some smart device. You you make coffee that might be automatic. You have all the IoT devices in your home, you check your email, you get in your car. As soon as I get in my car, it tells me it is seven minutes to the Madison Cyber Labs because it knows my pattern, it knows where I'm going. Email, doctor, school, all of the things that we do from getting coffee to paying our bills is based on technology. And we need to ensure that all of that is secure. And so that's the future that we're working towards at the university is how do we take the things that we rely on and ensure that it's confidential, ensure that there's access to it, ensure the integrity of the data, and to make sure that what we rely on is there and it's safe and secure.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

I love that. That's incredible. I, you know, you guys have so much going on, and I and I think it's important to note too, not only what you're doing for the state of South Dakota, which I think is incredible, what you're doing in Young Minds, which I think is incredible, but you guys also partner with businesses outside of kind of the scope of just education. Can you talk a little bit about that as well for our listeners?

SPEAKER_01 6:21

Yeah, I think that our students, our faculty, our university wins when we can take our area of expertise and help and support others. So we're doing a multitude of things. One area that comes to mind right now is with Case New Holland. And so we've been working with them on their tractors and their infrastructure to create an intrusion detection system that secures their equipment. And when you think about a tractor, you might think of what we grew up with. I think of my grandpa in his open-air green tractor, right? But now it's all technology, it's an Internet of Things device. And so, how do we keep that GPS coordination safe? How do we keep that data that's going up to the cloud safe? How do we work in that fashion? So we're working with partners all across the country on different mission-driven reasons and problem-solving approaches. So it's um it's pretty exciting. We get a lot of grants to support our initiatives. So from the U.S. Small Business Administration, we received a million dollars from them twice to help South Dakota Small Businesses be safe. And so we have a team of pen testers that are doing internal and external penetration tests, but also supported by students. So students are getting that experience hands-on keyboard. How do we look at reconnaissance? How do we compromise known vulnerabilities? How do we gain a foothold? How do we cover our tracks? How do we do those things as a bad actor would do in order to help the business understand where their weaknesses and vulnerabilities lie? So we've been helping South Dakota small businesses for the last three years in that initiative with our Google Cybersecurity Clinic that takes that effort and brings it to schools, to healthcare, to nonprofits. So we're able to do those same core functions of cybersecurity assessments that we're known for, but to a different audience with different funding. So with the state of South Dakota, we've been partnering with them for the last seven years for all local governments. So when most people think of state government, they think of the executive branch, but it's our local governments and counties that are doing the things that we need for our schools, our roads, transportation, commerce, and they don't have a lot of funding. And so we have funding through the Attorney General's office to conduct security assessments for all local governments, and we've been doing that for seven years. So regardless if we're looking at a city, a township, or a small business or a school or a nonprofit, um, we have about a 95% success of full compromise. So we're able to get in, gain a foothold, and help them understand where we can we can help them be a little more cyber safe as well.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

I love that. And I know you guys partner with CISA too, don't you?

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yes, yes. Yep. So um our our leader on the state side, uh Dr. Jim Edmond, he is a great partner of ours. Um, and so I call him Dr. Edmond because he came to DSU a few years ago and they made him a plaque that said Dr. Jim Edmonds. So I'm I have not let that down since, and we're gonna continue with that. I love that. And the next time we see him, we will you have to call him Dr. Edmond. So all your listeners must call him Dr. Edmond. So um I'm gonna call him after this. I hope let him know how that goes. But I love it. Um so yes, so Ciza then works with um our entities on risk assessments. So Carnegie Mellon developed a very great robust approach to risk assessments, and so he does a risk assessment side for them, and then we do the technical evaluation. And in in a small state, we have to work together, we have to partner together. And and I love our relationship with our federal partners in that area. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Well, yeah, just I love this concept of an educational institution that is partnering with business and with with local and state and state government. There's just not there's not enough of that, you know. As in a technology company, it's really hard to find people who have skills and attitude and aptitude, you know, to come be part of what you're doing as a business. So you guys are doing some brilliant things in in that space. Yeah, um, I'd love to dig in a little bit on the camps. Yeah, because you probably hear people say all the time, you want time at Cyber Camp.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yes, that is a common phrase. Yes, common, common phrase.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

So love to hear a little bit more about the camps.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah. So we bring kids from all across the country to the university to spend a week with us to learn hands-on cyber, and but we make it fun. So uh next week with the girls' camp. So middle school girls rising sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Um, it's my daughter's second year where she's been eligible. So I was pregnant with her the first year of camp. Um, and then she's been at every camp ever since. So that's really neat. Even before she was quite old enough for it, she was there. And and I love that. But it's all about showing kids what the future of cybersecurity is. And, you know, as kids are growing up, they want to be what they can see. My son was going to be Batman for the longest time. Um, my daughter was gonna be a professor because that's what she saw. It's a very little different approach there. Um, but how many kids know what a digital forensic expert is? How many kids know what a red teamer is or network design? It's just not something that you see on cartoons. And so you might see hackers, but you don't see the other side, the defenders, the protectors. And so, how do we help kids understand what this field is? And that's a whole concept. If if she can see it, she can be it. And so our camps, um, Mary Horvath is a leading forensic expert with the FBI, and I bring her to camp every year. Um, and Jessica Hyde, she's a she's an international digital forensic expert. And so they show the kids what kind of digital data is on your phone. So instead of lecturing to the kids about, you know, make sure you make good choices, don't take a picture, don't send that snap. We recover them. We recover deleted photos, we recover deleted text messages, we go and see the web traffic on phones. So we help them understand how these very common devices in their lives are used and how they could perhaps make better decisions with their technology as well. So we put the dots close enough together for them to connect them themselves instead of just lecturing to them. So it's all hands-on, it's all serving a social purpose as well. Uh, but it's it's incredibly fun. We teach the girls how to crack passwords, not because we're trying to create little hackers and we don't send them home with tools on how to do it, but the whole purpose is that for your whole professional career, how many times have you gone through password management and identity management training? And so as you do that, it doesn't really hit home. But if you can see how easy it is to crack a password, you know to make better passwords. So they'll they'll first crack the hash, um, and the password is password one bang, which we all use, and it takes a fraction of a millisecond. So then we say, create something stronger, but we don't define stronger. So they create it, then we show them how to hash, make the hash, and then they crack it again. And so iteration by iteration with the algorithm that we're using, it's gonna take a couple hundred years with current computing power to crack that password. And so then the next time they have to make a password, they know how to make a good one and why it's important to make a good one. So that's what we do. It's all hands-on, it's all fun. And um, but you get kids from all areas of life from all around the country.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Cool. So it's not really just technology training, and there's certainly some really some life lessons. That you're gonna walk away with some tangible, yes, tangible things that you can apply to your life, whether you go into tech or not.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Well, exactly, because every job, tell me a job that doesn't rely on technology as a backbone, medical, commerce, retail, it doesn't matter. You have to have it. And we know that we you know, every person in a company has the opportunity to better protect it. And so people say people are the weakest link. I don't like that. I like to flip it, where we can say, hey, the every single person has the opportunity to keep our our company secure. And so they're less likely to be the ones that click on the link that start the cyber attack.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Yeah, love that. So as you've gone through 13 years now of these camps, any so now you've now you've got some history.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Um now you've got you know, people who were in the in the earlier camps um are out in the industry, they're out in the workforce. They're what any any interesting success stories of just some people who have come up through the camps and that was their introduction, and they just thought that was cool, and that that's the direction they went.

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Absolutely. I love this question. You know, since we started these, the outreach with Cyper, the camps and all of that, we've had a 350% increase in women in our Beacum College programs of computer and cyber science. And so it's not women at the sake of men, it's it's women because we don't have enough, period. We don't have enough professionals in this space. And so um we there's so many anecdotes of students that we met in the classroom that came to camp, that came to DSU and are now phenomenal leaders out in industry, and we bring them back to help teach the kids. So I have um I have I probably shouldn't say names because they're working in in different federal government agencies. Um, but a great uh student of mine, well, she's not a student of mine, she's a professional working for the NSA in Hawaii. Very cool. But bringing her back. And so uh it is so great to to bring back the women that we once met as middle schoolers in classrooms who are now kind of kicking butt in in what they do in helping protect us all.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

That's cool. I mean, I think it's kind of cool that you got, you know, NSA people going around saying, hey, one time at Cybercamp.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

At Dakota State University. Very cool.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

I think that I think that's just awesome. So where's where what's the vision um and the evolution of the camp project or whatever, whatever we're calling that? What is what does that look like, you know, five years from now, ten years from now?

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Is world domination too high of a bar here? Or where do we live? Okay, we're all about world domination. Thank you. Yeah, one world at a time. Yes, one world at a time, absolutely. You know, the whole point is is to help kids understand what a career looks like and what opportunities exist. And we want to help them as they're deciding the different career options that they have in front of them. So um, that's to me is the core of this. We want to help set kids up for great successful careers that's having a direct impact on the world that we rely on to do everything every day.

SPEAKER_02 17:38

That's incredible. You know, you talk a little bit about getting more girls involved and and women involved because I think for so long, I you know, I I've worked with you quite a while, and and it has been primarily male dominated. And you're absolutely right. It's not about trying to take over one or the other. But I'm really curious on making this relevant for these kids. It I think it goes more than just based on what you're saying, it goes more than showing them what a career could look like. It's showing them how to be responsible with the tech that's all around them, too. And I think that is a huge thing that I think parents struggle with. And so having that extra help is huge. But can you talk to me about opening the eyes, both boys and girls, but but girls and making IT approachable to women? I I think there's just something magical about that. And I I agree, I want all the women to just kick butt in IT. Um, but talk to me a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

Yeah, it's it it really is, it's a it's a great career field. And growing up, you probably were asked the same questions that I were, that I was. Are you good in math and science? And that's been the foundation. And as as you noted right away, we've flipped that. You know, are you curious? Do you like to know what's happening? Do you like to know how it's happening? Do you like to understand the newest technology and how things work? And to me, that's a corner of do you could should you explore a career in this space? And and as a parent, we all want opportunities that are endless for our kids. We want them to have high-paying jobs that allow them to have upward mobility and high job satisfaction. And so that also is cyber and tech. That's what this space is. And um, looking at that as as the foundation, um growing up, I mean, I didn't have my first cell phone until I was in college. Prior to that, it was car phones and bedphones and you guys remember all of those things. Yes, I do. But now um we live out uh we live in a rural area of our town, and so there's not neighbors everywhere, and and we don't have a landline. So my kids have had cell phones for quite some time. They need to be able to get a hold of us. I like to be able to track them when they leave school and walk to my office or where it is that they are. And so having that technology is something, it's a responsibility. And so making sure that they're locked down, but yet they understand that, you know, I could make a little mistake with a Polaroid camera and a handwritten note as a kid. You can't make that same mistake with a text message in a photo that's digital. And so helping them avoid some of those areas as well is a corner of what we do because one mistake can haunt you and follow you in ways that it just didn't when we were kids.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

I love that. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Back to life lessons again.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Yeah, and I think it's important to note too, like even if they're not working in the field, they walk away with that, with that knowledge and that responsibility, or at least a little bit more awareness of that responsibility and what it means. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

You you reminded me of of a family story. So my granddaughter, who's now 16.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

I hate when you say that. It makes me so sad.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

I know. Um, there was some discussion in their household about her getting a cell phone. This was some, you know, a few years ago. And the rule was 13 years old. You can get a cell phone. And that was not the right answer for her. And so she's trying to leverage me here. She says, Well, she calls me Ampa, which I love.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

By the way, she's going to the right person.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

She says I want to make sure that she knows that.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

Ampa. How old were you when your mom let you get your first cell phone? And I said, 36. Which brings me back to the comment you made about the Smithsonian, because I think of my first computer system, which I believe was called the Commodore 64.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Yeah, you could probably find one on this.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

You could probably find you've you've probably seen it in a museum. You've probably seen me in a museum because I'm I'm also old. But you know, I mean, the only thing that was connected to was the TV. Correct. And we played stupid, ridiculous games on a Pong and Asteroid and a Commodore. Great games, great games. Yeah. Um they're they're coming back in some of the arcades now, which is which is super fun. But flash forward a ways, and you start to see these plots in movies and TV shows about about gaming consoles being used for espionage and kidnapping things and what was it, kiss the girls or whatever. Along came a spider, whatever that was. That was kind of the premise of how they were, you know, the bad actors were manipulating people. And you start to see those early in, and you go, eh, that's not real. Um, but I know you've got some examples and some experience when Xbox first came around, and now it's connected to everything. Oh, absolutely. So talk a little bit about that experience.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah, absolutely. So when growing up, I had a Nintendo, um, the original gaming council and Super Mario Brothers, you gotta rescue the princess and conquer King Koopa. But if I wanted to play with someone, I would play against Luigi or you know, get someone to come over. Um, devices were those you you connected to the TV. You're absolutely right. You have to blow on the cartridge to make sure it still works. I remember that, yeah. But you know, we've gone from rudimentary devices to communication devices. And early in my career, and it just sounds like so long ago, but you know, digital forensics always investigating computers. I wanted a challenge and I wanted to look at new things that people were using to connect. And I was a professor at Drexel in Philadelphia, and I started to do a lot of research in this area about how bad actors were using it to um to steal virtual goods and virtual currency, digital currency communicate. Um, I helped with a murder trial, um, quite a few drug cases that dealt with gaming councils as well. So when people are connecting in chat rooms, you can get that metadata behind it. So this gamertag was communicating with this gamertag. They sent each other these items and later on they cashed them out for different values so you can see how people are using these environments to conduct their criminal activities. So it's um, you know, what's whatever technology has been created, bad actors find a way to go at it. We did a case about um a bad actor dropping drugs and phones into a restricted area with drones. And so looking at those devices, so it's just um people are criminals, some of them are just very intelligent in in how they're able to take something that's designed for one re way and and do something completely different with it. So it's really fun to take a look at those devices and start to reverse engineer, if you will, see what data we can find, how we can analyze it, what it means, and how we can use it in criminal investigations.

SPEAKER_00 24:52

Very interesting. I I would imagine, I mean, the the game consoles now are just massively sophisticated compared to an Xbox.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

Yeah, and and encrypted. And so that's a big difference. When I started a lot of this research, um it had the FatEx uh file system, and it wasn't encryption, it was security by obscurity, if you will, if you will. They were uh, but now um, yeah, my my kid has my son has a PlayStation and others, and they're fully encrypted, and so it's just a another level, but um, yeah, it technology is changing and all the ways people use it and communicate is is always evolving.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

And how does that that extra sophistication and encryption and all of that, how how does that play into this, you know, bad actors using those kinds of platforms? Does it make it easier for them, harder for them?

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Is it makes it harder for the good people to investigate? Yes, to investigate it. So Facebook turned on uh and then encryption on their messaging platform, which really sorry Facebook, but it's true, it just makes a blind turns a blind eye to all the things that were happening. You had a lot of bad people sending illicit photos through that messaging app, and they would have cyber tips through it. And the cyber tips would be alerted to NICMIC and others' areas that were investigating that level of child endangerment activity. They turn on end and encryption and now there's no reports.

SPEAKER_00 26:19

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

So, yes, every layer of I'm not advocating against security by any means because it's important, but when we know that bad actors are using something and you're doing, you know, a million tips every year to now zero because we can't see it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

Makes it makes it easier for them to hide.

SPEAKER_01 26:38

It does, it does, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Interesting thanks. So uh just curious, and this is this is more of a personal question. So as a concerned grandfather, yeah, you know, and I watch I watch Drew so far, he's gaming with people, kids he knows.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Which is not terribly concerning, but I mean how do you how what should you be concerned with, either as a gamer or as a parent or a grandparent? Right. And how do you guide someone to keep them out of trouble in that space?

SPEAKER_01 27:13

I wish I had all the answers to this because I'm, you know, as a parent, I'm dealing with this myself, and it's that layered approach that you know when you let them play with some device, and you are bringing in any outsider that in into your home. And so um we have a rule that if you're gonna do this and play in this area, you're gonna do it in the living room. So you're not in your room, we can hear it, we can see it. We have different apps that look at the traffic on the devices and monitor it for grooming behavior. Um, there's a tool called Bark that I like to use. It looks at all the communication and alert parents if there's anything that's going on. And so making sure that, and my kids hate this, but you know, Roblox and others, there are kid level protections, but they might not be able to play all the games that they want. Well, too bad. So we're gonna put all those restrictions on. So, you know, it is that layered approach that, you know, for the technology company, they need to have some ways to monitor, they need to have some restrictions in place. But as a parent, we have to be responsible for what we let our kids do. And so making sure that we see it, we go through it. I go through my kids' phones with them. They hate it, but I'm gonna, we're gonna sit down and take a look at this and and make sure we're making good choices as well. But I'm sure there's things I've missed, and um I'm sure there's things that all parents miss. And how can we work with our kids and the the platforms that we allow our kids on? That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Interesting. That's all great conversation. I just as a parent myself, um I don't have a young child anymore, but I mean, still, I mean, it's the technology is always there, everything that they're exposed to. You just you know, it's just just an uphill battle on sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 28:56

One thing that um makes me incredibly sad about this space, every year there's usually a dozen or so young men in our country that commit suicide through sex dorm. So they will be communicating Snapchat or what have you with someone that they think is another young female, and the that female will send the male pictures and they say, Okay, so I'm gonna send you this, you send me this, and they go back and forth, they gain trust. You know, initially you're gonna have those conversations of where are you from, where do you go to school, all of that, and then photos come. Well, what happens is that that person that they're communicating with clearly is not the person of the photos, but they're just using them. And so once they get those photos of the young man, they then use it to extort them. I need you to give me money, or you know, I know you go to school here, I know you're this old years old, I'm gonna talk to your coach, I'm gonna talk to your teachers, send it to your parents, and they see no other way out besides suicide. And that happens way too frequently in our country. About a dozen cases that I know of every year. And so having that conversation with your kids that, hey, even if you get in over your head, okay, that's a lesson, but it's not worth your life. We can work through this together, we can help, we can help in this situation. So, you know, it's a good reminder to parents of kids that are even 17, 18, 19, high school, college age, that that conversation's important still.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

I love that. Thank you for bringing light to that. That's incredible. I didn't even know that. And I yeah, absolutely. I'm I guarantee that somebody will hear that today, and I hope it helps. So thank you. Shifting gears a little bit about what you're you're building at Dakota State. Yeah. You know, just when we first introduced and you were talking about just the partnerships that you have and working with small business, but you're also building tomorrow's IT professionals. Yes. Which I think is incredibly amazing. But talk to me about how people tap into that pipeline. And, you know, again, I think Andy talked about in our last episode, and and so did Dean Sheeley about, you know, finding an IT professional is sometimes not as easy as you think it is, right? Or it's it's a little challenging. And so tell us a little bit about just this next generation of student that's coming out. I know we've we talk about AI every episode, gonna talk about it here. Uh, you know, how you're preparing them, and then how people tap into that pipeline. Because it looks like you've got a lot of programs that that help the state. Um, but the these IT professionals coming out, how do they tap into those?

SPEAKER_01 31:35

Yeah, we have a 99.9% placement rate for our students. Wow. 99.9% placement. And we've had that for 20 years. That's incorrect. And our you know, our core cyber rate. Cyber it is. And so our core cyber programs, we have associates to PhD. So um, if you're curious about networking, we do have uh an associate's degree, but bachelor's is, you know, more common, master's, PhD. So we have that full stack in all of those areas, including cyber operations, which is the offensive side, cyber defense, and then artificial intelligence and computer science as well. And so we are creating the workforce of tomorrow in all of those different areas of cyber. It's really exciting to see our students when they first come in as a freshman versus when they leave. There's a lot of growth that happens. But one of the things that we do on the training side for our students, in addition to the classroom, is competitions. So our students compete all across the world. Um, they won the pen testing collegiate cyber competition globals last year. This year we won the Cyber Defense C C D C Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition. I mean, we're competing against all of the universities out there. That's very cool. Um, we just won a competition at MIT on um Bitcoin. It was a new platform that they created in that area. So, how to solve a problem in that space. So lots of hackathons, lots of competitions. Excuse me. And we're working to help train them in those areas. So, you know, students get a lot in the classroom, they learn from their faculty. We have phenomenal faculty, they get hands-on experience in jobs that we have on campus and internships with businesses, but the competitions are where they they can fine-tune those skills. Wow, that is absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Wow. Oh, oofta.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Oofta.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

I love it. I absolutely love it. Okay, just charges me up. And uh the fact that that institution is here in South Dakota just very cool. Yeah, it's it's extremely incredible. I keep using that, like the double, you know, positives. That's cool. It's not a double negative, it's a double positive. I like double positives. Yeah, I do I like them better than double negatives. Okay, so we're gonna shift gears a little bit. So we are out of questions. Or are we? We are not out of questions.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

I did tell her the secret before because she did ask about the obscene bingo wheel with you are the only one who's ever asked in advance what is. No one has ever asked. They just ignore it or pretend it's nothing.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Um, so we're gonna, do you want to spin the wheel? And we'll so how this works is we want to get to know you on a personal level. Obviously, we've gotten to know you from a professional level, and so we want our listeners to get to know you a little bit personally, and you have the option. You can answer it yourself, or you can, once you answer it, you can make us answer it as well. So you're not the only one on the hot seat. But there you go.

SPEAKER_01 34:40

Okay, if you had the opportunity to launch into space and orbit the earth with no financial expenses to yourself, would you do it? Um, oh, I would be terrified, but yeah, I would. I would probably need a sedative to get out there, to be honest with you. I'd get a little motion sick, but um, I would. And I have my my 10-year-old son Hudson, he wants to be an astronaut. So he started as, you know, wanting to be Batman. Um he did space camp. Yeah, you're right, yeah, and Buzz Lightyear. Oh, okay uh start he did space camp at Kennedy Space Center two summers ago. And in a couple weeks, we're going to Huntsville, Alabama to do space camp there. So if I said no to this, he would really like, yeah, want to know why I said no to it. But I probably would need to be uh not aware um as I'm going up because I don't even like roller coasters.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Yeah, how about you guys? Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 35:40

Oh, I I'm on the complete opposite end of that spectrum. I love roller coasters. I would be all over that. I would go in a minute. In fact, I would pay money to do that.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

I uh I'm similar to you. I do not like roller coasters. I'm terrified of heights. Uh I think it'd be cool once I got up there. Yeah, of course I'd want to do it so you could say, hey, I got to go to C. You know, yeah. But I think once I'm up there, I'd probably be like, whoa, this is a very aware of where I'm at in my surroundings. So even if you did give me a sedative to get me up there, I'd also probably panic while up there. What could go wrong? Yeah, yes. Am I getting back down? Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

You're in an aluminum tube in outer space. What could possibly go wrong?

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Nothing. Exactly. Nothing. Yes. Oh, shoot. Well, Ashley, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for being a strong woman in IT. Thank you for your just sharing your insight with us today and for shaping not only the young generation coming out, but this whole level of college students that are going out into the world. Thank you so much for that. Yeah, well, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

This has been fun.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

And for helping, for helping us find the new generation of people who will help us advance our businesses as well. So thank you very much. This has been a great conversation. Really enjoyed it. Thank you all for joining. And remember, we are always here to help you get to the point.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

But before we help you get to the point, you also we would love for you to subscribe to our podcast. Um follow us on social media, hit us up on our website. I always say this, but I mean it every time. If you if there is a subject that is just burning a hole in your pocket or keeping you up at night, please let us know. We would love to dig more into that uh challenge and hopefully get you some answers. All of you have a great day.