Page 49 - INC Magazine-November 2018

p

SURfacInG
San antonio,
tech hotSpot

Austin gets the glory. But
just an hour south, San
Antonio, Texas, quietly
dominates cybersecurity.
Its sector bona fides date
back to 1985, when the
Air Force consolidated its
electronic security mission
there. Defense contractors
followed, and then a for­
mer chip­manufacturing
plant was converted into
a sprawling National
Security Agency outpost.
That planted the seeds,
and dozens of cyber­
security startups thrive
there today. But key com­
panies—ThreatGuard,
SecureLogix, Silotech,
Innové—aren’t household
names; they gener­
ally work in the shadows.
“What you see on the
news in a breach story is
just the tip of the iceberg,”
intones John Dickson, a
former Air Force intel­
ligence officer and princi­
pal of Denim Group, which
helps banks and insurance
companies build “more
resilient” software. Local
education programs help:
University of Texas at San
Antonio has three sepa­
rate cybersecurity centers,
including the nation’s top­
ranked program—and the
National Collegiate Cyber
Defense Competition,
essentially the national
championship for student
cyberwarriors. Meanwhile,
cyberattacks increase in
frequency and severity,
and global cybersecurity
spending is growing by
double­digits each year;
it should top $1 trillion by
2021. All that demand
will continue to work in
San Antonio’s favor—and
the fact that it may boast WondeR yeaRS
the nation’s highest rate Co-founder Chris Bennett
of taco shops per capita enjoying recess at a Wonderschool
doesn’t hurt either. in Daly City, California.
—Tom FoSTer