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At Cybersecurity Camps, Teen Girls Learn About Protecting Nation, Breaking Barriers


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Young women assess a program at a cybersecurity camp held by the New York University Tandon School of Engineering.

Summer camps devoted to helping young women learn cybersecurity have popped up in recent years as public and private sector experts have called for a stronger pipeline of talent.

Credit: Alexander Cohn/The Wall Street Journal

A growing number of cybersecurity camps are helping to prepare young women to work in this field, as women remain underrepresented in the information security workforce worldwide.

Women make up 11% of the information security workforce, even as a shortage of 1.8 million cybersecurity professionals is expected to exist globally by 2022, according to a report from Frost & Sullivan.

Both public- and private-sector experts have called for a stronger pipeline of cybersecurity professionals, and the U.S. National Security Agency and National Science Foundation, for example, are jointly sponsoring 131 "GenCyber" camps for students and teachers in kindergarten through 12th grade across the U.S. this summer, up from seven camps in 2014. Many of them are focusing on attracting women, such as a free three-week camp this month at New York University's Tandon School of Engineering, which attracted 45 teenage girls.

From The Wall Street Journal
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Abstracts Copyright © 2017 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA


 

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