During the spring school holidays, AWSN ran 2 events in Sydney and Melbourne with 110 high school girls (from different schools in grade 7 -10) for a cyber security high schools experience day.
This initiative was supported by Government and Industry and run by the Australian Women in Security Network (AWSN) and volunteers.
It was a fantastic partnership between industry, government and Australian startups, and was a great start to Cyber Security Awareness Month.
The year 7-8’s enjoyed the interactive activities and learnt some foundational cyber security concepts such as networking, cryptography, data and created programs using microbits.
The year 9-10’s deep dived into cyber security with hands on Capture-the-Flag challenges, introducing them to real world scenarios and incident response principles. Some of these girls got through the scenarios quicker than security professionals!
At the beginning of the day, none of the girls across the 2 events had considered a career in cybersecurity... By the end of the day, 24% of the 110 girls said they were now thinking about a cyber career!
The girls received signed copies donated by Craig Ford (The Shadow World and Foresight) as prizes.
