The Girl Scouts has partnered with Palo Alto Networks to release 18 new cybersecurity badges,
according to Engadget.
According to a study cited by CNN Tech, a 2016 IT Trade association found that boys are more likely to be interested in IT. Of the girls who didn’t consider IT a career path, 69 percent claimed this because they were unfamiliar with the field.
The new CEO of the Girl Scouts organization, Sylvia Acevedo, went on a mission to change this. Being a rocket scientist herself, she told CNN Tech, “I learned that I could do science and that led to the courage and the confidence in a time when not many girls were studying engineering to be an engineer. My first job was as a rocket scientist … I understand the power of Girl Scouts, I understand how it changes destiny.”
To learn what the girls of the Girl Scouts wanted to learn, Acevedo surveyed members. The results were “pleasantly surprise[ing],” she told CNN Tech, “they wanted more computer science, specifically cybersecurity.” And, with that, the creation of 18 new badges catering to cybersecurity and computer science began.
The new badges will have younger girls focusing on data privacy, cyberbullying and learning to protect themselves while online. Meanwhile, the older girls will be gaining skills in coding, ethical hacking and learning how to create and work around firewalls, Engadget reports.
The Girl Scouts has over 1.8 million members. With a number that large, it is plausible that this new initiative could help close the gender gaps seen throughout the STEM career fields, CNN Tech reports.
“If the industry is going to tackle the cybersecurity problems of tomorrow, we’re going to need a robust and diverse talent pool,” Rick Howard, chief security officer at Palo Alto Networks, told CNN. The incorporation of these 18 new badges could be enough to help reduce the 1.5 million job shortages in cybersecurity expected by 2020.
The first of the cybersecurity badges is to be released in September 2018.
