iQ4 Partners With Costa Rica and CompTIA in an Industry-First Macro-Credential Program to Modernize and Expand the Cybersecurity Workforce Across Latin America

Cybersecurity and Advanced Technology Certification Programs Offered to Develop Skills and Train the Workforce of Tomorrow

iQ4 Corporation, which helps students, academia, business, and government collaborate to transform and scale the workforce of the future through its digital talent cloud platform, announced  that in partnership with Texas Tech University Costa Rica, it plans to expand its training, virtual job learning, cybersecurity, and advanced technology certification programs to select countries across Latin America.

In addition to the agreement with Costa Rica (announced in 2020), iQ4 will now contract with governments and education officials from Mexico, Panama, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic to help modernize the country’s workforce with a focus on cybersecurity and cloud technology.

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“We are so excited to work with key labor and education representatives across the Latin America region to join our workforce modernization initiatives,” said Frank Cicio, iQ4 founder and CEO. “From the first day of our inception we have been laser focused on enabling technology and content that would level the playing field and help to close the skills gap starting with cyber security and cloud technology for students around the world, with near term expansion in information technology, advanced manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and tourism.”

iQ4 was formally approved in the “Registry of International Providers for Professional Qualification Services on the Innovation and Human Capital Program for Competitiveness” by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications of Costa Rica (MICITT) to collaborate, transform and scale the cybersecurity workforce of the future. The company recently collaborated with Texas Tech University Costa Rica in July and traveled to Costa Rica to host a series of speakers and discuss the state of the program and how it could expand into other parts of Latin America.

“Costa Rica has set the stage for building and modernizing a new and skilled workforce, and we are excited that Texas Tech, iQ4 and other Latin countries will all be collaborating and working together on this movement,” said Ellen Rose, executive director Texas Tech University Costa Rica.

The technological revolution associated with the computer and information economy has accelerated the shift from manufacturing-based economies toward service-based economies — economies where productivity and competitiveness depend on their capacity to efficiently generate, process, and apply knowledge-based information. Unfortunately, many institutions that serve this model have simply not kept up. However, a digital talent cloud infrastructure platform that enables a skills marketplace for learning and hiring while activating, fueling, and transforming a “learning economy” represents a new paradigm shift for people and organizations and will enable them to thrive and be successful.

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“iQ4 will provide individual mobility for students and professionals to find their perfect fit, employers to find the perfect candidate, and cohort-learning to increase workforce optimization in the region,” added Cicio. “Discovery. Development. Retention. These are the building blocks of the learning economy. We are confident that other Latin American countries will have the same level of success as Costa Rica and that the program will continue to attract and employ top talent and prominent brands.”

“The investment in today’s workforce will be a regional and strategic initiative focused on training, retraining, and upskilling our labor force so we can thrive in a rapidly changing technological world,” said Vanessa Gibson, director investment climate, Costa Rican Coalition of Development Initiatives Association (CINDE.org). “Our values align perfectly with iQ4’s and we look forward to working with them to transform the learning economy together.”

In the last year, more than 270 Costa Rican citizens, both students and adults, seeking to improve and retrain their skills have benefitted from the iQ4 programs. The partnership has also helped to boost economic develop in the region including our July showcase with industry participants including IBM, Deloitte, CISCO, Stryker, Akamai and Equifax.

iQ4 has developed a platform that enables “cohort learning” through strategic collaboration between students, academia, and the business world. Courses are offered to a variety of students with technical background, including students in high school, community colleges, colleges, and adult learners in current jobs looking to upskill as well as those looking to reskill into a new career. The programs will have a direct impact on helping students obtain high value-added job positions in cyber security and cloud computing, allowing them national and international employability opportunities, with the aim to close the global skills gap.