UW-Green Bay GenCyber wildly successful in comparison
Similar to the 71 locations in 39 states across the nation this summer, UW-Green Bay hosted a GenCyber camp for students in grades 7-9. The UW-Green Bay GenCyber camp was one of the larger camps in the nation with close to 100 participants (compared to an average of 25 campers among 130 camps!). Organizers were particularly proud of the gender mix as 32 percent were female. Narrowing the gender gap and addressing issues related to female under-representation in computing sciences, including cybersecurity, is a major challenge for all computing educators. Increasing familiarity with jobs in this field is an important first step to solving this. UW-Green Bay may have “cracked the code” by intentionally providing camp information to organizations such as girl scouts, Green Bay Boys and Girls Club, United Way, local school districts, Salvation Army, Junior Achievement and the Einstein Project — all organizations that encouraged girls to enroll. Cybersecurity professionals are in high demand and females are an important part of a talented and diverse talent pool needed in this area. The goal of the camp was to help students understand correct and safe online behavior, develop knowledge about cybersecurity content and create awareness of careers in the cybersecurity workforce. Local news station WBAY-ABC2 reported about the UW-Green Bay camp. The story can be seen here.