MENLO PARK >> Fifth-grader Natalie Valencia thought that cybersecurity was a career path boys followed, not girls, but a weeklong summer camp at Facebook changed her mind.
“Mostly boys do fixing,” said Natalie, a student at Lairon College Preparatory Academy in San Jose. “Now I thought about it, and I know it’s for girls, too.”
The 10-year-old was among more than 30 female middle school students who were learning about cyberethics, Internet security tips, malware and more at the social media giant’s headquarters this week.
In a joint effort with San Jose State University and several nonprofits, Facebook is trying to get more women interested in the field by exposing students to computer science at a young age.
Only 1 in every 10 employed scientists and engineers are minority women, according to the National Science Foundation. At Facebook, about 16 percent of women work in tech jobs, data from March show.
“There’s not a lot of diverse candidates in the field, so that’s why we’re investing in the kind of longer-term efforts like this,” said Michael McGrew, a security engineer at Facebook who runs the company’s security education program.
The summer camp is a part of a series of events and after-school classes the students have attended throughout the year in an effort to help them find mentors, get hands-on experience and continue learning about computer science by joining a high school program run by CyberPatriot, a national youth cybereducation program.
“There are also several others who don’t have regular and reliable access to computers and the Internet, putting them at a great disadvantage, very early in life,” said Virginia Lehmkuhl-Dakhwe, director of the Jay Pinson STEM Education Center at San Jose State.
At Facebook’s headquarters Friday, students split into teams and competed for prizes by completing a series of tasks, including turning on a firewall and getting rid of malware, on the last day of the summer camp.
The teams of girls called themselves the Cyberlollipops, Sharknado and the Minecraft Girls as instructors from CyberPatriot glanced over their shoulders, making sure the teams stayed on task.
“Even if you’re not going into a cyber field, these skills would definitely be really good to have,” said Allyssa Bradley, who just finished eighth grade at Willow Glen Middle School this year.
Later in the day, the girls got a glimpse into what working on Facebook’s cybersecurity team is like and heard from a panel of female employees and the company’s chief security officer, Alex Stamos, about what they enjoyed about their daily jobs.
“I think the fun thing about security is that it’s not like building a bridge, it’s like you’re playing chess,” he said.
Stamos said he heads a team of about 100 people at Facebook and is hoping to hire about 40 more this year to help keep the site’s 1.4 billion users worldwide safe.
“It’s really important for us to get people from all over who have all kinds of interesting experiences to come work in security so we can keep this world population safe,” he told the girls.
Elizabeth Ames, vice president of the Anita Borg Institute, said that education programs are only one way to help diversify the tech workforce.
“They help to break down the stereotype early on and encourage more young women to consider the field. This is definitely helpful, but alone will not solve the problem,” she said..
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