CompuGirls Hawaiʻi 6-8 Spring Camp 2022
By Whitney Aragaki
“An interesting, amazing program for students who want to learn about cybersecurity.” This is how one student described their time during the first CompuGirls Hawaiʻi 6-8 Camp in March 2022. Seven students engaged in culturally responsive and place-based cybersecurity activities during the virtual camp that spanned for two weekends in March. Students from Oʻahu and Hawaiʻi Island came together for five hours each weekend to learn about the current and potential roles of women in cybersecurity.
Last school year, over one hundred students engaged in CompuGirls Hawaiʻi programming, aimed at students in grades 9-12. This time, programming was differentiated for students at the middle school level, in grades 6-8. In Hawaiʻi, there is a new push for computer science at all levels, from elementary to high school, through college and career. Recent Hawaiʻi state bills, such as SB2142: Relating to Computer Science, strengthen Hawaiʻi’s computer science foundation by developing graduation requirements of computer science as a subject area. However, to engage students in high school computer science, a foundation must be set earlier than ninth grade.
The role of CompuGirls Hawaiʻi 6-8 supports student engagement and inquiry prior to high school curricula. This spring, participants learned with mentor teachers, Verona Holder and Joni Maunupau, to highlight the importance of women in cybersecurity.
The participants engaged in career conversations with local Mana Cyber Wāhine (mana = strong; wāhine = women): Jodi Ito, Chief Information Security Officer at the University of Hawaiʻi; Connie Lau, retired President/CEO of Hawaiian Electric Industries, and Tiare Martin, Executive Director of Maui High Performance Computing Center. The students shared that the gift of time with these powerful women was the most meaningful part of the camp.
In addition to our Mana Cyber Wāhine conversations, the participants met with Ken Kauluwehi to learn about white-hat hacking and listen to some amazing moʻolelo (stories). We closed the camp with a conversation with Rachel Ware, a graduate student in computer science at Arizona State University, who was able to share about her educational path as a computer scientist.
I am fortunate to see the CompuGirls Hawaiʻi program evolve and respond to the needs of traditionally under-anticipated students since 2020. It has been a pleasure and an amazing learning experience to support cybersecurity education in Hawaiʻi. Working with students as young as 11 in the program this spring reminds me that we are setting a solid foundation for the future of computer science and cybersecurity as an equitable and diverse career path for all Hawaiʻi students.
