Excitement was high when UNCG’s Spartan Cyber Guardian Academy opened in January 2025 with a $1 million grant from Google. Since then, the numbers of students seeking cybersecurity training, and organizations seeking their services, have already exceeded clinic leaders’ expectations.
UNCG’s cybersecurity clinic is the first at a North Carolina university.
With funding and wraparound support from Google, the academy uses a service-learning clinic model to provide free, hands-on experience in industry-standard cybersecurity frameworks and auditing.
Clinic clients are regional organizations, such as small businesses and nonprofit organizations, that lack resources for comprehensive cybersecurity threat analysis and protection.
The academy aims to strengthen the region’s cybersecurity landscape while training the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
“The goal we set with Google was to serve 16 clients total during the 2025 spring and fall semesters,” said clinic director Dr. Moez Farokhnia Hamedani, an assistant professor of information systems in the Bryan School of Business and Economics. “But we received many more applications from organizations and served 13 nonprofits in the spring alone.”
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