On Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th May, BT hosted over 150 students and teachers at the CyberFirst Taster Day at Adastral Park, Ipswich! The event was aimed at encouraging Year 7 girls in East Anglia to enter the CyberFirst Girls competition next academic year, which is run by the NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre). The overall goal being to bring more women into the STEM industry!

The event consisted of a range of different activities from using a Caesar cipher, showcase tours, decoding messages hidden around the venue, to solving some pretty difficult logic-based puzzles. There was also a keynote talk from a CyberFirst representative walking through the CyberFirst Girls competition and how to enter; and finally, an inspirational career panel session giving the students an opportunity to hear from women in the security industry.

The importance of hosting events like this and inspiring the next generation of technologists is widely appreciated, leading to this event being featured in regional TV news (to see the ITV piece use this link from around 22 minutes).

We received fantastic feedback from the teachers and students and hope the event will increase the number of local schools taking part in the NCSC competition this September! It was a fantastic group effort from everyone involved, including the Adastral Park STEM enrichment team and a whole swathe of brilliant volunteers. We are extremely appreciative and grateful for all of the support we received to run what turned out to be two amazing days.