Women in Appsec (WIA)
The Women in AppSec (WIA) initiative is dedicated to the idea that diversity and inclusion is important to the success of the organization, and the industry as a whole. WIA helps women looking to learn more about AppSec or who want to make career connections with like-minded colleagues. This includes female undergraduate and graduate students, instructors, developers, and professionals who are dedicated to information security or application development. (While the WIA name says “women”, it is intended to be an inclusive and accepting environment for all underrepresented groups).
Goal of OWASP Women In Appsec
- To create a community where women can speak freely about their interests in cyber security
- To provide a safe platform for women to offer and/or receive professional mentorship; and
- To train women who are new to the industry
WIA at Global AppSec
One of the goals for Global AppSec Tel Aviv has been to provide an equitable and inclusive environment with opportunities for those from underrepresented groups.
Key initiatives:
- Double Blind Call for Papers process.
- Outreach to underrepresented groups for paper submission.
- Speaker mentoring for new (and experienced) speakers that were interested.
- More diverse speaker list: around 1/3 of the speakers and half the keynotes were women. Speakers also represented several PoC and multiple religions, ethnicities, and gender identity. All this despite not seeing speaker identity during submissions review.
- Free training (for women and underrepresented groups) on Introduction to Web Application Hacking course by Vandana Verma.
- We gave out dozens of scholarship tickets to women, students, and others, thanks to grants by the NoVA chapter and OWASP.
- 10 seats in the paid training courses were granted to women, thanks to the gracious donations from each of the trainers and OWASP.
- Multiple chapters (OWASP Israel and OWASP NoVA chapters) funded travel grants to provide assistance for several speakers from underrepresented groups who otherwise wouldn’t have been able to join us.
- The conference provided a dedicated WIA networking room throughout the conference.
- Personal introductions between first time attendees and other groups
- We held a career / mentoring lunch in the WIA room on Wednesday, to facilitate introductions, networking, career tips, and more.
Ways you can help:
- Encourage the amazing speakers and trainers you know to apply.
- Forward our call for papers to your local affinity groups and ensure that they know OWASP is an inclusive place to speak.
- Speak at your local affinity group’s meetings about the opportunities at OWASP and invite them to attend local meetings and events.
- Suggest ways that the onsite conference experience can be more welcoming and supportive
WIA will be offering during the conference:
- Complimentary hands-on training class, May 28, 2019
- WIA room, May 29-30, RB J
- Careers luncheon, May 29