GenCyber Smart Girls Camp for Middle School Students Promotes Cybersecurity as a Future Career Choice

Application deadline extended until June 10.

Harford Community College has openings for middle-school girls from underserved populations to STEM who are new to cybersecurity activities to enroll in its free “GenCyber Smart Girls Camp,” a one-week, nonresidential cybersecurity summer day camp. Two one-week camp sessions will be offered this summer to rising 7th, 8th, and 9th graders ages 11-15 at no cost to increase their interest in cybersecurity, help them understand safe online behavior, and teach them how to apply GenCyber Cybersecurity First Principles. The GenCyber program will help activate the next generation of cyber defenders, helping them shift from being users to becoming makers, coders, developers, and programmers.

The camps will run July 11-15 and July 25-29, 9 AM to 4 PM, Monday through Friday on the College’s Bel Air campus. Each day at the GenCyber Smart Girls Camp, students will investigate, program, and hack familiar Internet of Things (IOT) devices such as fitness trackers, Roomba robotic vacuum cleaners, and Amazon Echoes through individual and small group hands-on projects. The activities will address safe digital behavior, cybersecurity ethics, data security, and privacy through experiments with common devices.

The due date for applications for the camp has been extended to June 10. The application is available at https://go.harford.edu/GenCyber. Only parents of selected applicants will be notified on or about June 17 as to their child’s acceptance into the camp.

The camps are funded by a grant awarded by the National Security Agency (NSA) and National Science Foundation (NSF) to Harford Community College.

For more information, contact Dawn Grissom at dgrissom@harford.edu or 443.412.2364.