IT security continues to be a male-dominated industry. To challenge the status quo and promote gender equality, a team of female colleagues from Ruhr University Bochum, the Max Planck Institute of Security and Privacy (MPI-SP), and CASA (Cybersecurity in the Age of Large-Scale Adversaries) organized the third edition of the Creative.Minds workshop. This project has recently become part of the Equal Opportunities Plan of MPI-SP. “Creative.Minds aims to do justice to the fact that female students should be encouraged and empowered as early as possible to pursue a career in a still male-dominated discipline. This is necessary if we want to credibly address the gender inequality problem at its root. “, says Alina Schmidt, Equal Opportunities Officer at MPI-SP.
During the 3-day event, Anne Born (SchwarzIT), Anika Gerold (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik), Anita Aghaie (Siemens), Hoang Anh (Metafinanz), and Selina Danelzik (G DATA) provided valuable and inspirational career insights and experience from industry and academia. In addition, the participants were introduced into the world of IT security via practical exercises: they learned how to identify vulnerabilities and make web applications more secure. “The number of attendees this year was smaller compared to previous editions. This way we could focus on the individual needs of each participant and make sure they had the best experience possible during the workshop.”, says Clara Schneidewind, faculty member at MPI-SP.
General note: In case of using gender-assigning attributes we include all those who consider themselves in this gender regardless of their own biological sex.