Let's grow together

The initiative

THE INITIATIVE

The Women in Cyber initiative was born 2019, when a group of women from different organisations met and discussed the gender gap in the field of cyber and what they could do about it.

The idea was to connect, inspire and shed light on the work and contributions of women who work in cyber but also to find ways to attract women to explore this field and ultimately to increase the number of female cyber professionals.

Due to COVID, the first WiC Day event could only take place in 2021 in a virtual set-up. Even in that set up, we had more than 300 registrations. The highlight of this events was the keynote speech from Federal Councilor and Head of the Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport, Viola Amherd.

In September 2022, the successful WiC Day journey continued with over 100 participants for the first in-person event in Zurich.

Today, the Women in Cyber team has founded the Women in Cyber Association and continues to collaborate towards our shared goals. Women in Cyber now has more than 930 followers on LinkedIn and we are consistently growing.

Our mission

Despite an observable growth in the field of cybersecurity in the last couple of years, when taking a closer look we see that women are still underrepresented in the global cyber security workforce. This is against a backdrop of a growing skills shortage in cyber; by 2022 there could be a global deficit of 1.8 million cyber security professionals. To help organisations bridge this gap, it is essential to encourage more women into cyber security and to offer them equal opportunities.

what we mean by cybe

What we mean by "cyber"

We use the term «cyber» in the broadest sense to refer to the entire field of connected information technology. Such a broad scope creates the space to address a wide variety of topics such as cyber insurance, compliance, monitoring, engineering, testing, architecture, risk management, operations, investigations and more.

Core team

Our Core Team

The Women in Cyber Association is co-organized in a decentralized manner by major cyber players in Switzerland. The core team has decided to do so because they understand the benefit of in working together to achieve real results. Key decisions are taken based on the majority’s preferences. Overall, the group agrees to work together with trust and respect for all involved, with the best interests of the audience in mind.

Being in the Core Team means great commitment and passion for the purpose of the association.