Women in CyberSecurity Announces Allyship Symposium and Breakfast

Event is open to sponsor and partner passholders attending the WiCyS 2023 Conference in Denver on March 16-18

DENVER, Feb. 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS), the nonprofit organization dedicated to the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in cybersecurity, announced that it will be holding an invite-only Allyship Symposium and Breakfast at its WiCyS 2023 conference in March.

The workshop is open to WiCyS sponsor and partner passholders and is designed to build greater empathy among WiCyS’s allies and help them explore tangible steps towards creating a more inclusive workforce in the field of cybersecurity. Done in collaboration with Change Catalyst, the workshop will be facilitated by Melinda Briana Epler, Founder & CEO of Change Catalyst and author of “How to Be an Ally.”

During the gathering, participants will learn actionable steps they can take to be allies for women in cybersecurity. Throughout the symposium, they will learn to identify and interrupt common biases and microaggressions that women in tech experience, understand how women with intersectional identities want their allies to support and advocate for them, and commit to taking specific allyship actions moving forward.

This interactive learning experience will include information sharing, polls and word clouds, breakout discussions and peer storytelling. A panel discussion with diverse WiCyS community leaders will provide a deeper understanding of the lived experiences of women in cybersecurity and their allies. The program will end with attendees’ commitments to allyship. After completion of the program and their written commitment to allyship, participants will receive a digital badge and lapel pin to showcase their WiCyS allyship and a list of actions to practice at WiCyS’ events and in the workplace.

“Despite our name, we are not a women-only organization,” said Lynn Dohm, executive director of WiCyS. “We are a community of like-minded people of all genders who help drive the change that is needed in the cybersecurity industry. It is only with this collective voice that we can make a real impact in enhancing inclusivity in the workplace.”

This event is by invitation only to WiCyS sponsor and partner passholders attending the conference. Anyone who registered for the conference with a strategic partner pass, conference sponsor pass, or career fair pass will receive an invitation. The symposium starts at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, March 16 and will conclude by 11:30. RSVP is required.

To learn more about the WiCyS 2023 Conference, visit https://www.wicys.org/events/wicys-2023/.

About WiCyS:
Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS) is a nonprofit organization with international reach dedicated to the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in cybersecurity. WiCyS was founded by Dr. Ambareen Siraj in 2013 through a National Science Foundation grant awarded to Tennessee Tech University. In less than 10 years, it has grown into an organization (est. in 2017) representing a leading alliance between trailblazers from academia, government, and industry. WiCyS offers opportunities, trainings, events, and resources for its members. Strategic partners include Tier 1: Akamai, Amazon Web Services, Battelle, Bloomberg, Carnegie Mellon University – Software Engineering Institute, Cisco, Fortinet, Google, Intel, Lockheed Martin, Meta, Microsoft, Optum, Sandia National Laboratories, SentinelOne. Tier 2: AbbVie, Aristocrat, Dell Technologies, JPMorgan Chase & Co., LinkedIn, McKesson, Nike, NCC Group, Workday, Navy Federal Credit Union, Yubico Inc., DeVry University. To partner, visit http://www.wicys.org/support/strategic-partnerships/.

SOURCE WiCyS