Cybersecurity has always been about people as much as technology.
We can build better tools, stronger infrastructure and smarter defenses, but our ability to protect an increasingly connected society ultimately depends on the people who understand how to use, challenge and improve them.
This is why cybersecurity skills are becoming a strategic priority across Europe – and why bringing together the people who shape policy with those who teach, hire, build, defend and research matters.
On November 17, during the DefCamp week in Bucharest, DefCamp and NCC-RO – Romania’s National Cybersecurity Coordination Centre are bringing these perspectives together for a dedicated working session around the National Cybersecurity Skills Academy (Academia Națională de Competențe în Securitate Cibernetică).
Taking place ahead of the main DefCamp conference days, the workshop will bring together representatives of the organizations that have signed the Declaration of Accession to the National Cybersecurity Skills Academy, marking an important step from commitment to collaboration.
In a focused working environment, participants will have the opportunity to exchange perspectives, identify shared priorities and explore how their expertise and resources can contribute to developing Romania’s cybersecurity skills ecosystem.
At the heart of the conversation is a shared challenge:
How do we build the cybersecurity skills Romania needs for the years ahead?
From a European priority to a Romanian cybersecurity skills ecosystem
The cybersecurity skills gap is not unique to Romania.
Across Europe, the growing need for cybersecurity expertise is challenging both public and private organizations. The European Cybersecurity Skills Academy was created to bring together existing initiatives at European and national level and help strengthen the cybersecurity workforce.
The idea goes beyond simply creating more courses.
Building cybersecurity capabilities means connecting education and training with the realities of the field. It means creating stronger links between universities, training providers, public institutions, companies and cybersecurity professionals. And it means understanding where skills already exist, where the gaps are and how people can continue developing throughout their careers.
Romania is translating this European direction into a national framework through the National Cybersecurity Skills Academy, launched in October 2026 by NCC-RO together with the Romanian National Cyber Security Directorate (DNSC) and the Ministry of Education and Research during the Bucharest Cybersecurity Conference (BCC2026).
At its core is an idea we strongly relate to at DefCamp:
Cybersecurity skills cannot be developed in isolation.
Romania has valuable cybersecurity initiatives, but fragmentation costs us time and resources and limits their multiplier effect. The Academy aims to connect these efforts so that knowledge and successful practices can benefit more schools, organizations and communities.
We are co-designing this initiative with the cybersecurity community, industry, academia and public administration. Together, we need agile cooperation mechanisms, agreed across the Academy’s ecosystem, to turn shared priorities and contributions into practical activities. DefCamp brings valuable experience from the field into this process.
The Academy aims to help connect different parts of Romania’s cybersecurity skills ecosystem and bring learning opportunities closer to the actual needs of the people and organizations working in the field.
Education providers need to understand what skills organizations are looking for. Employers and practitioners need ways to contribute their practical experience. Public institutions need a clearer picture of existing capabilities and emerging gaps. And people entering – or already working in – cybersecurity need pathways to learn, specialize, reskill and keep developing.
Connecting those pieces is where the opportunity lies.
Connecting education with real-world cybersecurity
Cybersecurity evolves too quickly for skills development to happen entirely inside classrooms.
New technologies appear. Threats change. Attack techniques evolve. Defensive practices adapt. What was considered specialized knowledge a few years ago can rapidly become something organizations need every day.
That makes the relationship between education and practice especially important.
Universities and training providers bring structured learning, research and long-term development. Industry brings visibility into new and emerging technologies, roles and skills that organizations need. Public institutions can help create frameworks and connect national efforts with European opportunities.
And practitioners bring something equally important: experience from the field.
Security teams, researchers, ethical hackers, incident responders and other cybersecurity professionals constantly generate knowledge that can help prepare the next generation. That experience can enter the learning process through practical laboratories, mentorship, internships, educational resources, competitions and direct collaboration with education providers.
But there is another part of this ecosystem that should not be overlooked: the Community.
Why this conversation belongs at DefCamp
DefCamp started as a community of people curious enough to take technology apart, understand how it breaks and share what they learned over a decade ago.
That same principle still defines us.
Today, DefCamp brings together cybersecurity professionals, researchers, hackers, students, companies, public-sector representatives and decision-makers.
Some come to present research.
Some come to compete.
Some come to meet future colleagues or find talent.
Others come because they are at the beginning of their cybersecurity journey and want to understand where it might take them.
And many come simply because this is where the cybersecurity community meets.
That kind of community has always played an important role in developing cybersecurity skills.
Long before someone has a cybersecurity job title, their first meaningful experience might come from solving a CTF challenge, attending a local meetup, experimenting in a lab, reading another researcher’s write-up or asking someone more experienced how something works.
Communities create environments where curiosity turns into practice.
Why this conversation belongs at DefCamp
At DefCamp, we’ve always believed that strong communities are built through action, not just conversation. We’re glad to stand alongside NCC-RO and support the National Cybersecurity Skills Academy by hosting its first practical workshop during DefCamp Week. We like to get things done - bringing the right people together, putting real challenges on the table and turning ideas into concrete next steps. This workshop is exactly about that: moving from commitment to collaboration and, ultimately, to capability.
Communities create environments where curiosity turns into practice.
But building cybersecurity talent at scale requires more than those individual moments.
It requires connecting what happens organically inside the community with the institutions, universities and organizations that can help turn that knowledge into sustainable learning and career pathways.
This is where we see an important role for Cyber Academia – and why this conversation makes sense during DefCamp week.
Where policy meets practice
There is naturally some distance between cybersecurity policy and day-to-day cybersecurity practice.
Policy works with frameworks, priorities, programs and long-term objectives. Practitioners work with vulnerabilities, incidents, architectures, systems and threats that can change from one day to the next. Education operates on yet another timeline, preparing people not just for the technologies organizations use today, but ideally for problems they will need to solve years from now.
A strong cybersecurity skills ecosystem needs all three perspectives.
The National Cybersecurity Skills Academy has the potential to create more opportunities for them to meet.
Its impact will ultimately depend not only on frameworks or programs, but on participation across the ecosystem: universities sharing what and how they teach, organizations articulating the skills they need, practitioners contributing their experience, institutions helping connect initiatives and opportunities, and communities continuing to give people spaces where they can experiment, fail, learn and try again.
For us, that last part feels particularly familiar.
Starting DefCamp 2026 with a different kind of challenge
As DefCamp Week brings together the cybersecurity community through dedicated workshops, knowledge sharing and hands-on experiences, the Cyber Academia working session on November 17 adds another dimension to the conversation: how we collectively build the skills and opportunities needed for the future.
Organized by DefCamp in collaboration with NCC-RO, the session is a dedicated activity with limited access, based on prior confirmation, bringing together organizations that have joined the National Cybersecurity Skills Academy.
While the workshop has a focused format, the challenge it addresses belongs to the entire cybersecurity ecosystem. Technologies, threats and tools will continue to change – but the need for skilled, curious people ready to understand and tackle them will remain.
That is how we move from community to capability.
