CYBER SCAPE AFRICA | Q2
2019
The Blacks in Cybersecurity, LLC Conference series
known more commonly as “B.I.C.” has recently
made its way into the Cybersecurity and
Information Security conference scene in the
Washington, D.C. Metro Area, U.S.A.
Through addressing the lack of resources available
to communities by having regular events and
providing incite via knowledge shares and online
spaces for interaction as well as using our
platform to regularly cite both executive-level
through entry level African American
Cybersecurity professionals, hobbyists, and
interested individuals B.I.C. seeks to address the
issue of lack of proper inclusion in the
Cybersecurity field.
In the United States, there are approximately only
12.3% of African Americans working as
Information Security Analysts in the field. In
analyzing this statistic, it can be inferred that
there is a dramatic lack of representation in this
field compared to the general population of
African Americans in the country. This lack not
only represents that opportunities that are
potentially missed by qualified members but also,
the lack of neurodiversity that the African
American community could offer that is missing
from the Cybersecurity community as a whole.
B.I.C was founded early in the spring of 2018 and
later officially organized in January of 2019. The
official mission of Blacks In Cybersecurity, LLC is to
encourage the participation of people of color in
Cybersecurity. In taking on this powerful mission,
B.I.C strives to be a conference series and meetup
group to help highlight and elevate minorities in
the Cybersecurity field. Since conception, this
conference series has hosted several happy hours,
networking events, scheduled meetups at
common conferences, and their own unique brand
of micro conferences called “Minicons”. For many
in the Delaware-D.C.-Maryland-Virginia (D.M.V.)
area, B.I.C. is not simply a series of events but, a
small reunion from which meaningful comradery is
formed and familiar faces can be matched with
their twitter profiles and engaged with in rigorous
conversation.
This lack of representation from the African
American community as well as the lack of access
to adequate resources has caused much discussion
in the African American community working in
Cybersecurity and Technology related fields. This
constant discussion in forums, panels, conferences
and social media over the issue has always circled
around to the same question, “How can we get
more African Americans in Cyber?”.
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