In America, a new kind of draft is calling on students to counter cyber terrorism. In 2010, the United States needed 20,000 cybersecurity experts but only had about 1,000. The U.S. government is recruiting young people to create a workforce of hackers in order to defend the US from cyber attacks.

The next generation of white hat hackers live within the U.S. A survey of 200 well-known hackers reported that 70 percent live in America, that 90 percent are male and that the average age of a hacker is 16 – 19 years old.

While teenage hackers are mostly self-taught, there are some notable programs to help them. CODEHS is a company that aims to provide online programming classes in high schools, Code Academy is a free online school to teach anyone how to code and Sans Institute is a cybersecurity school.

The world is in great need of hackers. The United States and its allies are pouring money into computer defense, Western governments spending a total of $35.5 billion on telecommunications and cyber security in 2010. Entry level “ethical hackers” can earn between $50,000 and $100,000 each year.

In this infographic, homeland-security-degree.org explores the world of hacking for cybersecurity as well as where the future is headed for young hackers.

Source: socialmediatoday.com/

Well the guys at Hootsuite reached out to some well known social and business guys to get their point of view. Pretty compelling stuff for anyone who is yet to believe you that social media is not for kids alone but can drive customer engagement, support customer management, help innovate new products and ultimately deliver more sales. We’re pretty convinced and have been for years…

One for your next team/board meeting. Get it on screen, click play, sit back and let people like Richard Branson, Jeremiah Owyang and Michael Chui at McKinsey do the pitch for you!

My good mate @DaveRReed said “it’s not a patch on VW Darth Vadar” and I have to agree.

Kinda funny but not their usual gigs.

So what would I know…

I’m the Founder of a great digital agency Planet 9. We specialise in using digital to create leads and sales for the SME market and also doing great work for large an

d small charities and also not-fot-profits. Digital to me is much more than just nice creative and technology.

When not doing that I’m also the Senior Lecturer at Birmingham City University’s New Technology Institute lecturing on the two Masters programmes I helped develop in 2012.

I’ve wandered around in the digital marketing world for well over 15 years now which makes me feel wise but old at the same time.

So, tweet, comment, link, like, mail, DM, etc, etc and let’s talk.                                                                                                                               

Superb…