Cyberschool Expert Panel Session 'Women in Cyber'

On July 5th, 2024 we gathered female experts to talk about their experience of being a Woman in Cyber. This is a side-event for the Indo-Dutch Cyber Security School (IDCSS), which is organized annually by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and the Data Security Council of India (DSCI). In October this year, the 2024 iteration of this Cyberschool will be held. Earlier this year, HCSS hosted the first iteration of the South Africa - Netherlands Cyber Security Schools (SANCS) together with Stellenbosch University and so we opened this event up to the alumni of both the cyber schools.
We started off with opening remarks by Tulika Pandey who set the scene for the rest of the session with some empowering words for women seeking a career in the cybersecurity field.
We then moved to the panelists Richa Johri Gupta, Esther Schagen-van Luit, Lakshmi Eswari and Nanjira Sambuli who made incredible contributions to what was a very interesting and inspiring panel covering topics from the state of Cybersecurity in India, South Africa, the Netherlands, diversity in the cyber workforce, barriers to enter cyber security as a career, women-specific struggles and much more.
And of course, none of this would've been possible without the help of our amazing moderator Noelle van der Waag-Cowling who kept the conversation flowing with great questions for the panelists and her own follow ups and insights.