It is more important now than ever to educate students about cybersecurity and possible career opportunities in the field, and for the last three years ReliaQuest has hosted a high school internship program to give students in Tampa Bay a chance to get hands-on cyber experience and explore possible career paths in the industry.
This year the program doubled in size, hosting one hundred students from The Academy of the Holy Names and Jesuit High School. Students spent two weeks at ReliaQuest’s headquarters on Water Street learning about career opportunities within the cybersecurity industry and gaining insight from top industry professionals.
Throughout the program, students learned about everything from valuable life skills to how ReliaQuest is leveraging Agentic AI within security operations, to tailoring and presenting a pitch to C-suite executives.
This program is a part of a larger effort by ReliaQuest to invest in future generations and support the cybersecurity talent pipeline. There is no lack of young people willing and eager to learn about cybersecurity, and ReliaQuest seeks to give students meaningful opportunities to learn and explore how their interests and passions align with the industry.
Throughout the program, students heard from ReliaQuest teammates across the company — from GreyMatter operations to marketing to finance—to gain an understanding of how various teams play a part in delivering outcomes for customers.
Gianluca Pasquotto, a rising senior at Jesuit, explained: “I wasn’t familiar with the cyber industry before this program, but now I understand the importance of cybersecurity and how it protects not only businesses, but people as well.”
“I want to go into finance, and this was a great opportunity to get a feel for the corporate world. Getting insight from people on the finance team at ReliaQuest showed me a lot about what a possible future career could look like for me,” said Pasquotto.
Students also heard practical knowledge and insights from a panel of ReliaQuest customers as they shared real-world challenges faced by security teams, and how ReliaQuest’s GreyMatter technology empowers their teams to overcome obstacles, streamline operations, and stay ahead of evolving threats.
To demonstrate how ReliaQuest leverages Agentic AI to transform security operations, students played ReliaQuest’s “Beat the AI” game, a simulation where participants compete against an AI agent to complete security tasks.
Camille King, a rising junior at Academy, explained: “The activity was a cool way to see and understand how complicated security work actually is, and how AI simplifies and solves problems that would normally take several people to solve.”
At the end of the program, students completed a final project in which they presented a pitch tailored to a C-suite executive and demonstrated how the GreyMatter platform solves common challenges that security teams face.
ReliaQuest partners with youth education organizations to foster young cyber talent and raise awareness about the importance of cybersecurity.
Through hands-on learning and mentorship, ReliaQuest is empowering the next generation with the skills and knowledge needed to navigate career paths in cybersecurity and tackle the largest technical challenge of our generation.
