Talent management is usually not well-supported by traditional curricula, because university courses are typically designed for a large number of average students and not for the few outstanding ones. In this paper, we share our experiences on running a talent mentoring program in IT security at our university. We describe the whole process from increasing awareness of IT security among students, via maintaining a community of practice where they can improve their skills, to finally connect them to well-established IT companies. We also introduce avatao, a platform to support hands-on IT security practice. Our methods could serve as a blueprint to establish a successful talent management program in IT security in a typical academic environment.
