The portal is completely open and contains structured and aggregated information for and from information security professionals who self-fund their own training through Patreon.com/HackYourMom. All money collected by Patreon is spent on the development of the portal and the cyber army of Ukraine, and the first funds collected were transferred to the Armed Forces of Ukraine. HackYourMom couch army portal is a place for smart people who understand that everything depends on them. Here are people who are confident that they can do anything, including choosing what and from whom to study. Mom Hacker Academy uses a community-based development model – it provides development control, resources, and decision-making authority to subgroups within the community.
The founders of the HackYourMom portal are convinced that closed profile communities themselves know best how to improve their lives and where it is more appropriate to invest money, and with the availability of appropriate resources and information, they can organize themselves to meet their urgent needs; in the case of HackYourMom, it is the need for new knowledge in the field of cyber security. The basis of ensuring the viability of the portal is the idea of effective altruism: only those who want to learn are used to finance education, while everyone can choose the cost and depth of knowledge. You yourself choose the amount of donations and the speed of your training; even $1 will be enough to start learning. There are well-known examples of effective democracy in limited circles of society, when decisions are made by small groups united by a common need, including the need for knowledge and self-development. Currently, many people have lost their jobs due to war and/or digital transformation and are looking for a new profession, new knowledge and field of application. Therefore, our portal invites everyone who wants to choose one of the most relevant professions of the future today – an information security specialist. Our portal is structured and aggregated knowledge and tools in the field of information security for convenient conduct of cyber war against Russia. And “tomorrow”, after our Victory, with our joint efforts we will build a crowdfunding Academy for training the world’s best specialists in information security and transfer all educational materials to Ukrainian universities. Our goal is that by developing this project, we want to fill the gap in cyber security education, which is almost non-existent in Ukraine.
Only 19 out of nearly 250 Ukrainian universities teach cybersecurity programs. And even those specialists who have knowledge prefer to transfer their skills abroad rather than work for local companies in low-paid government positions. At the same time, global demand for cybersecurity professionals has increased by more than 40% in the past year due to companies’ response to ransomware attacks and phishing campaigns. The “couch army” portal HackYourMom is an educational platform that provides the necessary knowledge for beginners in the field of information security, which is enough to join the cyber war against the Russian Federation and further development in the profession. The platform is the result of the work of the team of the well-known Ukrainian expert in the field of information security Mykyta Knysh and a group of volunteer cyber specialists and more. In these conditions, the sources of knowledge are the cyber security activists themselves, who share knowledge and create courses and training programs, in particular HackYourMom. We are sure that with joint efforts we will be able to turn our portal into a crowdfunding Academy for training the best specialists in information security, and we plan to transfer all educational materials to Ukrainian universities.
