Summer Camp for Cybersecurity

High school students in the San Francisco Bay Area had a special opportunity to learn more about cybersecurity this summer, thanks to CYBEAR, a summer camp funded by the NSA and the National Science Foundation and hosted by the TRUST Center. The camp is part of a system of 43 camps nationwide that seeks to address an extreme shortage of cybersecurity workers needed in both government and industry. In addition to including a number of UC Berkeley faculty and students as instructors, the program also collaborated with the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI), and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to develop curriculum.

Participants in CYBEAR were introduced to basic concepts about conducting research, learned about secure programming and principles of privacy, and were provided with information to help them define a path to careers in cyber security and privacy. The camp was successful in attracting significant numbers of underrepresented minorities (camp population was 55% female and 64% underrepresented minorities) and in reaching schools that do not offer any teacher-led computer science program.
The program was featured in a number of media outlets.