"<p>Recently, a group of high school women spent three weeks as participants  in the <a href=""http://engineering.nyu.edu/k12stem/cs4cs/"" target=""_blank"">Computer Science for  Cyber Security (CS4CS)</a> program, picking up fundamentals at the <a href=""http://engineering.nyu.edu/"" target=""_blank"" title=""NYU Tandon School of Engineering"">NYU Tandon School of Engineering</a>. Nearly  50 students attended classes at the downtown campus of the university, where they  learned about programming, computer architecture, careers in computer science and  cybersecurity and how to do professional networking. Now they're expected to return  to their schools and serve as ""computer science and cybersecurity ambassadors""  and recruit a team of classmates to compete in <a href=""https://csaw.engineering.nyu.edu/"" target=""_blank"">Cyber Security Awareness Week</a>, Tandon's  annual cybersecurity competition. The program is led by members of Tandon's <a href=""http://engineering.nyu.edu/academics/departments/computer-science-engineering"" target=""_blank"">Department  of Computer Science and Engineering</a> and the <a href=""http://osiris.cyber.nyu.edu/"" target=""_blank"">Offensive Security,  Incident Response and Internet Security (OSIRIS) Laboratory</a>.</p> <p>During a day spent with sponsor financial services firm <a href=""http://www.dtcc.com/"" target=""_blank"">Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation</a> (DTCC), participants met with myriad experts to learn about the general topics of  computer science as well as emerging technologies. During one talk, DTCC's Managing  Director and Chief Technology Architect, Rob Palatnick, covered blockchain and cryptocurrency  and spoke about distributed ledger and its impact on the financial industry. As  he told the students, they faced ""great opportunity"" to ""shape the  future"" of those technologies. ""The same way our phones have become so  much more than its initial purpose, we can expect distributed ledger technology  to serve as a platform for innovation in the next five years or so. This is exciting  because all of you will have the opportunity to investigate this area and help shape  the future of these maturing technologies.""</p> <p>Dan Varela, treat management associate and cyber incident analyst,  encouraged the young women to take advantage of the shortage of talent in the IT  security field. ""Of the current positions filled, only 11 percent are filled  by women, which means there is an even bigger opportunity within cybersecurity for  a majority of this audience,"" he said. ""Companies want to diversify their  workforce and gain new perspectives within this area. You have a great opportunity,  so continue to learn and grow.""</p> <p>Tandon sponsors numerous summer-time activities. In June  almost 300 middle school and high school students partook of half a dozen  programs. Almost six in 10 were female students. Activities took students into  numerous campus labs, including those doing research on soil mechanics, music  and audio, mechatronics, biomolecular engineering, genomics and molecular  anthropology.</p>"
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