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14 June 2019
On Monday 10 June ten of our year 9 girls were fortunate to attend the annual ‘Cyber Girls First’ event held at European law firm FieldFisher, London. Our girls heard some inspirational talks from successful women in Technology from Downing Street, the Home Office, GCHQ, the Metropolitan Police On-line Crime Unit, JP Morgan, Oracle, Arsenal FC and Bletchley Park.
The girls learned about the ever increasing dangers of cyber threats to the UK government, our banks and to the public and it is clear that there remains a high demand for people with the requisite IT skills to fight against these threats and keep us safe. It was, in the words of our pupils themselves, an incredibly ‘empowering’ and inspiring’ day.
CYBER GIRLS FIRST is attempting to demystify the idea that only boys can succeed in IT, and to point out that Chief Executives of companies around the country are desperate to recruit women into their cyber departments. During WWII, more than 60% of the codebreakers at Bletchley Park were women, so why have the numbers decreased?
The organisation brings in girls aged 11-14 from local schools to give them a day of IT, coding and cyber security, with talks by women who have attained high levels in management in these fields int he hope that it might inspire more to take up computer science related GCSE and further education courses.
Pupil Voice
I found the talks to be really interesting and empowering to hear from so many successful women in the IT world.
– Ipek
I really enjoyed the trip because of the interaction. The speakers came round to our tables for ten minutes, asking us questions and being asked questions. Overall it was great and really interesting to learn about the future and the past combined.
– Isobel
I found the Computing trip very interesting because we got to talk to lots of inspirational women and it helped me realise how many options there are for a career in IT.
– Emilia
