The Coffee Table Talks: Women in STEM

What's it like being a woman in STEM? How far have we come? How far do we have left to go? Those are the things we hope to bring to a new table. Kicking off in January of 2021- SecureNation and our empowerment partners would like to present: The Cyp(HER) Table. We will gather once a month and share stories, resources, and just plan good conversation.

"Alicia Park is an experienced educator with a strong passion for education technology, STEM and empowering young girls to explore the possibilities of working with technology. As national outreach manager for TechGirlz, she works with volunteers and other organizations to help them bring the free technology based workshops, or TechShopz in a Box, to new communities across the U.S. She also manages the TechGirlz blog, where you can check out the latest news on TechGirlz or read about their volunteers’ experiences with the organization."

Nationally based, TechGirlz focuses on creating IT futures. A CompTIA 501c3 they hope to empower young girls and women to pursue interests in technology from engineering to cyber security and a taste of everything in between.

[Summer Dann envisioned and implemented all aspects of CTEC start up including instructor recruiting, buildings facilities, selection and admission process for students, curriculum and schedule development, and budget estimates and allocations.

She wrote application and received approval to be a Supplemental Course Academy for State of Louisiana which allows CTEC to offer Advanced CTE courses to high school students outside of the District and led a coalition of Post secondary partners, Principals and Administrators to develop and implement the EBR Early College Academy that provides students the opportunity to earn their Applied Associates Degree or Technical Diploma while in high school.]

Local to Baton Rouge, the EBR Career and Technical Education Center offers students a chance potentially earn their associates degree or certifications through a CompTIA partnership as they also graduate from high school. 

Kyleigh Maggitt & Dr. Natalie Clark Maggitt

This mother & daughter team is fierce. Per Dr. Maggitt's profile on LinkedIn: "Championing organizational success by being a trusted advisor to executive management on issues of compliance, employment law, people management, diversity and inclusion, HR policy development and implementation, affirmative action planning, employee resource group management and employee training and development."

iThriveHer is meant for underrepresented girls, 7th through 12th grade. They promote exposure to STEM, financial literacy, leadership development, and mentoring relationships. Kicking off during the COVID19 pandemic, the organization has already made strides to educate and develop young people.

Chloé Messdaghi

"The VP of Strategy at Point3 Security, she is an InfoSec Advocate & Activist who strongly believes that information security is a humanitarian issue. Besides her passion to keep people safe and empowered online & offline, she is driven to fight for hacker rights as a Cofounder of Hacking is NOT a Crime. She is also the founder of WeAreHackerz (formerly known as WomenHackerz) & the President and cofounder of Women of Security (WoSEC), podcaster for ITSP Magazine's The Uncommon Journey, and runs the Hacker Book Club."

WoSec boasts chapters all over the world providing safe/welcoming spaces for women and the non-binary community to network amongst one another through panel discussion, Q&A, workshops, etc.

Formerly known as WomenHackerz, WeAreHackerz focuses in on hackers of varying levels- they provide a more technical minded community of under represented genders.

Point3 Security hosts a yearly CTF inviting women focused groups to participate on a global scale. Women Unite over CTF will have a new event for 2021.

Alexis Robinson

"(She) is the Government Assessments Program Manager for Amazon Web Services (AWS) Security Assurance in the Washington, DC area. For the past 10 years, she has served her Federal Government clients by performing financial statement, performance, or compliance audits or advising them towards audit readiness. She graduated with double Bachelors of Science degrees in Accounting and Information Systems from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at University of Maryland, College Park. After working in IT software and development at CGI Federal, she turned to her passion for strong teaming and challenging engagements in a people-first firm with assurance and consulting work at EY. She is a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) and a Project Management Professional (PMP). In her current role, Alexis Robinson coordinates the assessments of services seeking authorization for various U.S. government certifications (i.e. FedRAMP, DoD, CMMC) applicable to the East/West and AWS GovCloud (US) regions, advises on government compliance matters internal to AWS, and liaisons with government regulators, customers and authorizing officials for federal compliance. She coordinates with her GAAP team members and other AWS Security teams as a liaison to the FedRAMP Joint Authorization Board (JAB).

Alexis is the former Co-Chair of EY’s Black Professional Network of Greater Washington, an affinity group that hosts several networking events, career development workshops, partner and executive director relationship breakfasts and dinners, and community service outreach programs within the Washington D.C. metropolitan area for over 150 members in the community. Through this effort, she served on the Americas BPN Steering Committee as the Northeast Representative and Communications Lead. To continue her diversity initiatives at Amazon, Alexis is currently the coordinator of the IAD Black Professional Network’s Quarterly Newsletter."

Empow(H)er Cybersecurity invite all women of color either in or looking to join the cyber security industry. Through partnerships with organizations like Cybrary they provide training, coaching and mentoring programs. 

Celeste Freeman

"I am a people person, relationships are my goal, collaboration is my endgame. I know every connection counts."

She helps her clients manage their vendor relationships with genuine care and grace while bringing everyone to a sustainable arrangement. Her passion is to be a real resource for those already a part of the information security community as well as point newcomers in the right direction.

There are groups, organizations full of wonderful women, as well as individuals that want to support and lift up others in cyber security- Celeste Freeman and I, through SecureNation, are here to spotlight them and connect the support to the professionals.

*Special thanks to Will McCullen, with PIMA Community College IT Center of Excellence based in Tucson, Arizona for continuing to put up with my antics.