Inspiring our young to be the next leaders in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is a core focus area for Symantec’s philanthropic efforts. We want to encourage more students to pursue careers in cybersecurity and computer science, and in particular support women and minorities. We are committed to supporting great organizations that are dedicated to STEM education, encouraging employee volunteerism, and establishing long-term relationships to build on their mission focused work. We find that as we get involved, other opportunities open up.
TeenTech, based in the United Kingdom, is one such organization that we’ve been involved with in the last few years and that participation has grown new opportunities for community involvement. TeenTech organizes lively, hands-on events and an Awards program to encourage young people to learn about the wide range of career possibilities in STEM. TeenTech events take place at venues across the UK and at each event 300-500 students from 30-50 different schools benefit from hands-on exhibits and challenges run by leading companies, universities, business organizations, and education business partnerships to create special experiences for young people.
TeenTech City
On December 1st, the fourth London TeenTech event, known as TeenTech City, took place in The Copper Box on the Olympic Park. Over 200 scientists, engineers, and technologist, including several Symantec employees, came together to share a day of challenges and experiments with students across London. Symantec set up a cybersecurity scenario to teach students about online security. The scenario demonstrated how hackers can extract information from seemingly harmless conversation from social media profiles and messages. It was a simple yet entertaining exercise that showed just how easily innocent conversation can unintentionally give out information to determine passwords and in effect other personal information. “It was amazing to see the realization for the need of online safety – both from the school children as well as the teachers. School children are aware of tech, but very unaware how easy it is to hack into accounts,” said Louine McKisack, one of the Symantec volunteers. Future Online Safety in Community opportunities emerged from the event. “We spoke with teachers about our Online Safety in the Community program and they invited us to visit their schools to speak with their students.”
The whole event was an immersive experience focused on fun while also providing real insight into the industries of the future and the skills need to take advantage of them. There were a variety of fascinating demos from diverse organizations displaying how technology is used in every aspect of our lives and in ways unknown to most. The water utility showed how technology could help save water while media companies demonstrated the technology used in making films and television. The impact of the day was incredible. It was Louine McKisack’s first time volunteering at the TeenTech event and she said, “It was so fascinating to see the children’s narrow ideas of what to do as a career melt away and learn that you don’t have to be a software engineer to work in the technology industry. At the beginning of the event, the organizers had all the students participate in an exercise where they were asked to draw a picture of typical scientist and at the end of day the students’ attitudes changed dramatically – it was very rewarding.” TeenTech aims to do just that – widen young people’s understanding of STEM careers.
TeenTech CEO, Maggie Philbin, welcoming the more than 500 students to the TeenTech City event in London.
World at Work Event at Symantec
TeenTech also organizes a technology competition called the TeenTech Awards that is designed for UK students from ages 11-16 and 17-18 to work in teams of up to three to develop technological solutions to a problem facing their community. At the TeenTech Awards in June, three girls from Alton Covent School won the People’s Choice Award for their “mShuttle”- an intelligent medical shuttle. At the event, Symantec’s Louise Hanlon, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Manager EMEA, met the Director of Alton Covent School and they decided to collaborate on an event. On December 4th, Symantec hosted thirty-five girls from the school to learn about the World at Work. The event was designed to engage the pupils in the world of work within the IT industry. The day was carefully designed so that the young women interacted with Symantec employees from various backgrounds and that were involved in different aspects of the business.
The girls of Alton Covent School visited Symantec, Reading UK for a glimpse inside the Work of Work in the IT industry.
The day began with a key note from Executive Vice President EMEA, Kevin Isaac. Kevin shared his inspirational journey, and invaluable insights for career progression and advised the students that a career can take many forms and not to be concerned if they did not currently have clarity on their own aspirations. He also encouraged the pupils to identify what they really enjoy doing, and to look for roles that incorporate this – as those roles could take many forms. This message was further reiterated by Caroline Dennington, Senior Director Global Analyst Relations, when she outlined her remarkable career story. Caroline challenged them to think broadly – working in IT does not mean it has to be technical. She encouraged them to think about their career path, what makes them tick, but also to understand that they do not need to make the decision instantly as it might not be a direct path.
Caroline Dennington, Senior Director Global Analyst Relations, pictured above, and Kevin Isaac, Executive Vice President EMEA, shared their career journeys with the girls.
The girls then split into smaller groups for sessions covering the impact of languages on career development and internet security. The students also successfully cracked the code to highlight the vulnerability of personal data and gained an insider’s perspective on the security operations center.
Fiona Hopkinson, Development Director of Alton Covent School said, “The feedback from the participants was effusive: ‘I didn’t realize there were so many exciting possibilities in the IT industry’; ‘The opportunities opened by studying languages are so vast’; ‘Symantec is such a cool company, the staff are really friendly and fulfilled by their work’. Alton Convent School is delighted to be partnering with Symantec to deliver further progressive careers opportunities.” Symantec looks forward to future events with the Alton Covent School!
Engaging and organizing events that inspire young people is one way Symantec contributes to the community, but we also seek to engage our employees. We encourage our employees to give back by sharing their skills and experience and equally to enhance their lives at work.
For more information on Symantec’s community involvement, email community_relations@symantec.com