Fortinet Foundation Creates Employee Matching Fund in Global Response to COVID-19
Ken Xie, Founder, Chairman of the Board, and Chief Executive Officer at Fortinet
“Since the beginning when Fortinet was founded 20 years ago, we deliberately created a culture built on technology innovation and continued learning. Through the establishment of a Corporate Foundation, we are extending investments in security training and education, employee community engagement and disaster relief efforts to empower and protect our communities, as well as positively impact our business, employees, customers and shareholders.”
News Summary
Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT), a global leader in broad, integrated and automated cybersecurity solutions, today announced the creation of the Fortinet Corporate Foundation to further its impact on global communities and expand the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives.
- Fortinet Foundation commits to matching multi-million dollars in employee contributions and in-kind to support global and local response to Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic.
- Fortinet Foundation will focus on growing its partnership efforts through public and private sector collaborations to further advance its philanthropic initiatives.
- The Fortinet Foundation will support Fortinet’s efforts focused on cybersecurity education and training, as well as global partner information-sharing initiatives to increase protection against cyber criminals.
Supporting Global Efforts in Response to COVID-19
Businesses, governments and communities want to maintain continuity in the midst of rapid changes resulting from the global public health crisis. To provide global and local COVID-19 relief support, the Fortinet Foundation has established a multi-million dollar fund to match employee giving.
Additionally, the Fortinet Foundation will continue to support disaster relief efforts by collaborating with organizations like the Information Technology Disaster Resource Center (ITDRC), focused on providing communities with the technical resources necessary to continue operations after disasters. Fortinet Foundation is supporting ITDRC’s projectConnect initiative by donating Fortinet’s security technology to help securely set up WiFi and hotspots, connecting rural and underserved communities across the United States affected by COVID-19.
These efforts further support Fortinet’s commitment to our customers, partners and communities impacted by COVID-19 by providing solutions, technology and resources that help maintain business continuity and keep remote workforces protected in the middle of the global pandemic.
Increasing Cybersecurity Awareness and Addressing the Skills Gap
The Fortinet Corporate Foundation expands the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives, especially those focused on addressing the cybersecurity skills gap and collaborations to provide security to individuals, organizations and governments around the world. Fortinet leverages its technology innovations, employees’ technical and intellectual talents and strategic partnerships in the following ways:
- Free training through Fortinet’s Network Securty Expert (NSE) Institute: As both a technology company and learning organization, Fortinet is focused on closing the cyber skills gap through its NSE Institute programs. NSE Institute offers security training to IT professionals, students, nonprofits and veterans and their spouses, among others, to provide the security knowledge necessary to fill critical cybersecurity roles. More recently, Fortinet made all its NSE Institue’s self-paced security training courses available for free to help address the rapidly evolving needs of organizations securing highly distributed and remote workforces. These courses also provide students and anyone looking to start a career in cybersecurity the opportunity to gain new knowledge or upskill.
- Fortinet Network Security Academy program: The Fortinet Network Security Academy (FNSA) program, part of NSE Institute, supports more than 200 academic institutions and nonprofits around the world. FNSA gives its members access to Fortinet’s NSE certification and training curricula to prepare students and participants for a career in cybersecurity. In addition to helping to develop cyber aware individuals, FNSA is helping to educate the future generation of security professionals.
- Global collaborations: Fortinet has forged strategic partnerships to further address the cyber skills gap as well as advance information sharing critical to tackling today’s sophisticated threats. As a founding member of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Centre for Cybersecurity and the Cyber Threat Alliance, Fortinet collaborates with global leaders from various sectors to help shape the future of cybersecurity and build new opportunities in the digital economy. Fortinet also has a partnership with the NATO Communications and Information Agency, and is a member of an expert working group within INTERPOL.
- Threat intelligence sharing through FortiGuard Labs: FortiGuard Labs has also been instrumental in threat sharing and collaboration, leveraging leading-edge machine learning and AI technologies to provide actionable threat intelligence to the industry. FortiGuard Labs’ partner ecosystem includes security vendor alliances, government agencies and international law enforcement organizations, enabling it to take a leadership role to ensure the industry is responding to global emerging security risks.
