Ahhhh!! Last Saturday was SO SO exciting to be able to mentor over 50 young girls at the CyberTech Girls Leap Day 2020 "Leap Into Cybersecurity" day-long event at Coastline College. Just one year ago, I was in the same shoes as these middle school and high school girls who have no clue about cybersecurity. This experience was such a memorable experience because I had the opportunity to inspire these young girls and explain how I was just like them one year ago when I was an attendee at CyberTech Girls. I wanted to be a mentor at CyberTech Girls 2020 because CyberTech Girls 2019 truly resonated with me and I wanted to give back to the amazing program that allowed me to advance my passion and dream career of working in cybersecurity as I approach college in just one year!

Mentors who volunteered at the CyberTech Girls Leap Day 2020 included individuals from AccessData, Cal Poly Pomona FAST, CISOSHARE, Crowdstrike, CA Department of Toxic Substances Control, DRIVE, Farmers and Merchants Bank, General Atomics, Frost Tech Solutions, HireRight, Integrum, Raytheon, Verizon, WiCyS Women in Cybersecurity, and a former CyberTech Girl returning as a mentor from Valencia High School (me!).

Many schools brought their girls to our program to immerse themselves in an intensive day of STEM. I had the opportunity to chat with one of the math teachers from the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD) and she explained how many of these girls do not get opportunities like this and how these programs are so beneficial for these young girls. SAUSD has been to many of the CyberTech Girls programs.

I enjoyed mentoring these girls so much and I would love to help out again next year. Seeing these girls being so immersed in the modules, especially Capture the Flag (CTF) on the desktops and being so interested in the forensics lab made my heart so happy. Females are AMAZING in STEM!

Check out the blog that Alex Poelma, the Director of Digital Forensics at AccessData posted about attending the CyberTech Girls 2020 event here!!