On the 26th of October 2024 Women4Cyber Finland organized the Empowering Women In Cybersecurity (EWICS 2024) event for the second time. This year approximately eighty participants gathered at Haaga-Helia University in Helsinki to grow their network, participate in different workshops and listen to inspirational speeches from cybersecurity professionals. They could also listen to the panel discussion on the role of cybersecurity communities in empowering women in Cyber.
The event started with opening words from the founder and chapter president of Women4Cyber Finland, Noora Hammar. In her short but impactful words she highlighted the importance of supporting members and volunteers for non-profit organizations to achieve better impact through bigger actions. After her, the stage was taken by multiple inspiring role models sharing their journey, experience and views on the field.
Embrace imperfection through bravery
The first keynote speech, “Search of the best leads down to the discovery of mediocre” was held by Laura Kankaala, the Head of Threat Intelligence at F-Secure. Describing her speech as inspirational seems like an understatement. I personally felt empowered and recognized myself so well that I have no doubt other women, newcomers or established professionals feel the same, especially if the notion of “imposter syndrome” seems familiar.
Laura highlighted that growing up, girls are mostly taught to be perfect whereas boys are taught to be brave. This can be seen in studies on job applications, women tend to apply if they meet 100% of the requirement but men when they meet only 60% of the skills specified on job offers. However, this reaching for perfection leads to lost possibilities and potential as inspirations, ideas and innovation are created through imperfection. Reward yourself for being brave to try, not for being the best.
Security is important everywhere, not just in cyber
Satu Korhonen kept the same direction as Laura with a truly empowering speech, mainly for those not directly working or aiming to work as cybersecurity experts. She is currently the product owner of AI Empowerment at Solita, a board member of TurkuSec and active in many cybersecurity events.
Her topic was “Cyber is not just cyber - Security is important everywhere”. She has been advocating for better cybersecurity in her own field and encourages everyone to collaborate rather than compete with cybersecurity specialists in order to bring security in various fields.
Her speech converged with Laura Kankaala’s one as she highlighted that having the willingness to put yourself out there is enough and crucial for people to find you. You are not needed nor expected to know everything in cyber and you can bring value to your own industry without being a cybersecurity expert. Be curious, participate in community events, volunteer where and when you can and you will bring your own stone to the edifice of a more diverse cybersecurity.
Life doesn’t always go as planned and it’s okay
Finally, Anne Hautakangas who was later at the event announced as the winner of the Role Model of The Year 2024 title, held a two-topic speech “National cyber resilience and one failed IT career”. In the first part she highlighted the difficulties to maintain a high security level in operational technologies, which are less talked about than information technologies. These technologies are, however, the backbone of all the systems supporting our daily activities and have a direct impact on global cyber resilience. According to a report by Microsoft in 2023, 78% of industrial control networks are considered vulnerable of which only a minority can be patched. As a result, it is crucial to keep operational technologies off the internet as much as possible to mitigate the risk of exploitation.
In the second part of her speech, Anne brought up her impressive career story with many setbacks that drove her further away from her final career goal, her “North star” as she called it, to be a Chief Technology Officer. The first steps of her career were exactly as she had planned, she started as a Junior developer and then was promoted to a Senior developer. However, after that, life did not go as planned and her journey fluctuated with a different ratio of technical/managerial work from Product Owner to Account Director.
Her career story was truly inspiring as it showed that you should not let setbacks tear you down and just embrace the opportunities as they come. No one should worry too much about life as it will get better, every career is filled with challenges, different ups and downs and the most important thing is to keep believing in yourself. There’s no rush to get where you want and if things don’t necessarily go as you planned things will take a turn for the better.
At first, having two different topics in the same speech seemed like an interesting choice. After hearing the speech, it made total sense. The keynote in itself reflected Anne’s career story and the idea of taking the opportunities you get.
Communities open doors for opportunities
In-between speeches, there was also a panel discussion on “Empowering women through communities” with four professionals of the field:
Anna Kerava, who works as a Recruitment lead ad Gofore
Pauliina Karjalainen, who works as a Security Analyst at Accenture and is a board member of SaimaaSec
Jolly Trivedi, and IT professional raising cybersecurity awareness by being an active volunteer in Turkusec and Women4Cyber Finland
Riku Juurikko, who works as the Head of Preparedness & Cyber Resilience at Elisa. He is an active member of the Finnish cybersecurity community by being a board member of Helsec, Next Gen Hack FI and Women4Cyber Finland.
First, it was discussed what communities have brought to the panelists. Taking part in events has for example helped Anna get to know the cybersecurity field better and to her, communities have even more opportunities to give to people than companies. For Riku, collaboration between Women4Cyber Finland and HelSec has helped bring more women to the community events and diversify the field. Jolly gained the courage to participate in Catch The Flags (CTFs) through her active participation in Women4Cyber Finland’s events. Finally, Pauliina told how a speech on her career story at one of the SaimaaSec’s events helped a student to take the courage to start studies in the field as well.
Overall, the panel discussion highlighted how important communities are in building a more diverse cybersecurity field. Communities are a key for opening opportunities that are otherwise harder to find, they can help to grow one’s network of like-minded people or learn new skills in an accessible manner.
To me, EWICS 2024 was an embodiment of this discussion in itself. In fact, the event gave great opportunities for participants to grow their network through discussions with support members at their stand or improve their skills through different workshops. At the event, there was the possibility to take part in CV and LinkedIn workshops to increase chances of employment in addition to career speed-dating.
As Noora Hammar said in her opening words, these kinds of community events are only possible thanks to support members, collaboration partners and volunteers who use their free-time to build and run the events and everything around them.
Women4Cyber Finland’s Support Members & Collaboration Partners who have made all this possible in 2024 are listed on our website: Supporters 2024 | Women4cyber Finland.
Text: Varpu Huhtinen, W4CFI Articles
Photos: Mike Champion
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