A call is going out today for girls in Conwy to consider a career which tackles spying, espionage, hacking and online security by launching an exciting in-school competition.

The National Cyber Security Centre, which is part of the goverment will once again be running the CyberFirst Girls Competition.

The competition is aimed at Year 8 girls in England and Wales, Year 9 in Northern Ireland and S2 in Scotland and aims to give as many girls as possible the opportunity to find out more about cyber security with a view to potentially influencing the subjects they take at GCSE. The sector is signficantly under represented by young women. 

The content for each category of the competition is consistent with subjects within the Computer Science syllabus from both the National Curriculum and Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence. It will contain some advanced cyber topics that are not covered in traditional education but will seek to stretch the lateral thinking and additional cyber knowledge of the teams.

CyberFirst began as a programme of opportunities a number of years ago to help young people explore their passion for tech by introducing them to the world of cyber security.

CyberFirst covers a broad range of activities: comprehensive bursary and apprenticeship schemes; a girls' only competition and school's development courses at UK universities and colleges.

There’s even Cyber Discovery; an online extracurricular programme. Each activity is designed to seek out people with potential, offering the support, skills, experience and exposure needed to be the future first line of defence in the CyberFirst world.

The competition is open to all schools and information can be found at https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/cyberfirst/girls-competition