Europe is facing a significant shortage of cybersecurity professionals (about 4 million workers, World Economic Forum, 2024), but at the same time a huge talent pool is not being tapped. Despite the growing demand for IT professionals, only one in five ICT professionals is a woman and only a third of STEAM graduates are women, according to the 2023 Women in the Digital Sector report. This imbalance not only highlights the gender gap, but also reflects a missed opportunity to fill IT positions with talented women who could help address the shortage of cybersecurity skills and professionals.

To address this situation, the workshop “Challenges of Women's Leadership in Cybersecurity” brought together IT experts and women leaders to explore the barriers that women face in entering and progressing in the cybersecurity field. Organised by CyberAgent, the event focused on strategies to promote greater inclusion and exploit women's vast potential in this vital sector and showcased examples of good practice.

The event was moderated by Saskia Brugman, Women4Cyber Strategic Partnership and Activities Coordinator.

Insights From the CyberAgent Project

Dr Renata Danielienė, CyberAgent project coordinator, shared insights from the latest cybersecurity skills gap survey conducted by the project. The study surveyed 190 education representatives from partner countries about the cybersecurity skills gap, curricula and the challenges of engaging women. In terms of women's challenges, respondents strongly felt that societal stereotypes and a lack of information about career opportunities are the main barriers for women entering the IT and cyber security field. In addition, respondents identified a lack of mentoring, role models and flexible working conditions as some of the main challenges.

“To contribute to solving these problems, we need to create a more inclusive environment and offer training on a variety of cybersecurity topics,” said Dr Renata Danielienė, “Mentoring programmes, female role models and support networks are essential to ensure that more women see cybersecurity as a viable career path.”

Dr Renata Danielienė invited to read the project report “Cybersecurity Change Agent Training Needs Assessment Report for SMEs,” which is available in English and the languages of the project partner countries, for a more comprehensive understanding of the research on the cybersecurity skills gap, identified challenges, and the underrepresentation of women.

The Global Perspective on Women's Role in Cybersecurity

Lessie Skiba, Director of Global Outreach and Partner Engagement at the Cyber Readiness Institute, focused on human behaviour and leadership in organizations during her presentation.

Lessie Skiba emphasized that women can contribute to shaping a cybersecurity culture within companies, as their skills often help create more flexible and inclusive environments. The speaker highlighted that women make up only 26% of the global cybersecurity workforce, but those who establish themselves in this field often retain their positions longer than men. She also emphasized that women have strong communication skills that can help change organizational behaviour and promote the adoption of cybersecurity practices, regardless of their technical background.

Lessie Skiba also introduced the Cyber Readiness Program, a free resource designed to help small and medium-sized enterprises implement key cybersecurity strategies, such as password management and fraud prevention. The Cyber Readiness Program is available in 4 languages, including English.

Spotlight on Spain: The Situation for Women in Cybersecurity

Jeimy Poveda, a privacy and digital rights specialist, Director of Dataseg.es, and board member of the Women in STEAM Empowerment Canarias organization from Spain, highlighted that women in this sector make up only 25% of all specialists and that change is happening very slowly – the proportion of women has increased by only 1% per year. Although STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields are becoming increasingly popular among women in Spain, many still do not choose cybersecurity as a career path.

Jeimy Poveda presented statistics related to women's participation in cybersecurity:
- only 18% of cybersecurity university graduates in Spain are women, indicating that the future workforce is still very disproportionate in terms of gender;
- only 6.9% of Spanish companies indicate that their cybersecurity workforce is equally distributed between men and women, while 46% of companies acknowledge that significantly more men than women work in this field.

Jeimy Poveda introduced the Canary Islands Women in STEAM Talent Map, a WISE Canarias project, which is dedicated to women working in STEM fields. The project aims to give women more visibility and help them be recognized as potential leaders. This initiative seeks to inspire women and girls to choose STEM careers by highlighting regional role models and leaders whose achievements could serve as an example.

Jeimy Poveda emphasized that this initiative is not just for the most famous or recognizable women – the project aims to showcase as many diverse women as possible who work in STEM and cybersecurity, including those who are just starting their careers.

Insights from the CyberAgent Project, Renata Danielienė

Women in Cyber: Navigating the Challenges of Cyber Readiness, Lessie Skiba

Spanish Women in Cybersecurity, Jeimy Poveda

Videos of seminar speakers: www.14dd5266c70789bdc806364df4586335-gdprlock/@CyberAgentEU>

Project coordinator: Kaunas Faculty of Vilnius University.
Project Leader Dr Renata Danielienė, Institute of Social Sciences and Applied Informatics.

Stay updated on future events and explore the full report on the CyberAgent project website: www.cyberagents.eu

Project consorcium: VU Kauno Fakultetas/VU Kaunas Faculty, Women4Cyber Foundation, Olemisen Balanssia ry, Prios, HackerU Polska, EVM, TIMTAL, GCM

#EUProject #CyberAgent #CyberAgentEU #Innovation #Cybersecurity #ErasmusPlus #Cybersecurity #SMEs

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.

The conference “Beyond Words: persuasive narratives and multimodal discourse”, organised by the research group “Multimodality in Public Discourse”, Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty, Institute of Languages, Literature and Translation Studies, aimed to reveal the symbiosis of language, visuals, and narratives in constructing persuasive communication. Experienced, renowned, and young scholars from Canada, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, the Netherlands, Finland, Ethiopia, USA, Italy, Albania, India, Bulgaria, South Korea, Croatia, Serbia, Belgium, UAE, France, UK, Czech Republic, Kuwait and, of course, Lithuania presented the results of their research on various topics related to multimodal discourse. The discussions on whether humans will preserve language as a distinctive feature in the face of increasingly daring other forms of communication, the burgeoning influence of artificial intelligence driven by linguistic models, etc. took place.

“We are glad that the Kaunas Faculty has managed to bring together multimodality researchers. Such a wide geography of conference participants allows us to understand the interconnectedness of text, image, sound, gestures and narratives in forming persuasive communication in a much wider cultural context. The discussions have generated ideas for further research that could shed light on the growing importance of multimodal discourse in contemporary communication," said the Associate Professor and the Chairperson of the Organizing Committee Saulutė Juzelėnienė (Vilnius University, Lithuania).

On 24th October, the delegation from Astana IT University of Kazakhstan – First Vice-Rector, Doctor of Economics, Professor Omirbayev Serik, Vice-Rector for Science and Innovation Andrii Biloshchytskyi and Director of the Quality Assurance Department Khanat Kassenov – visited VU Kaunas Faculty.

During the visit, the participants discussed the possibilities of cooperation in student and lecturer exchange, joint research activities and joint projects in order to strengthen the internationalisation of VU KnF Bachelor's degree programme Information Systems and Cyber Security.

"It is gratifying to see the international community that has been fostered for a number of years and whose importance is only growing in the current context. Opportunities for the rapid exchange of knowledge and practices for both lecturers and students, and for the development of joint projects that leverage the strengths of both sides, are becoming vital," says Assoc Prof Giedrius Romeika.

Slovenian economist and philosopher Prof. Vlado Dimovski teaches at the Ljubljana School of Economics and Business (Slovenia) and at universities worldwide. During his scientific career, he has led many research projects and published numerous articles. His main areas of expertise are organisational learning, knowledge management and leadership.

At the 19th International Prof. Vladas Gronskas Scientific Conference on November 29th, Prof. Vlado Dimovski will be speaking about the role of academia in shaping contemporary management practice, continuous learning in organisations and the challenges of the future for organisations.

On 25 October at 10:15 am (at Jonas Jablonskis room)  Dr Odeta Žukauskienė of Vilnius Academy of Arts Kaunas Faculty will give a plenary lecture on Human Engagement with the Nonhuman World: New Forms of Creation and Communication at the International Conference BEYOND WORDS: PERSUASIVE NARRATIVES AND MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE.

Odeta Žukauskienė is an Associate Professor at the Department of Humanities at Kaunas faculty, Vilnius Academy of Arts. She received her PhD degree in 2005 from Vilnius Academy of Arts with a dissertation focusing on the scholarly work of art historians Henri Focillon and Jurgis Baltrušaitis and comparative cultural studies. Since 2010 she teaches courses on aesthetics, visual culture, cultural anthropology, Eastern cultures and arts. She is also a chief researcher at the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute. Her teaching is informed by scholarship in comparative art history and contemporary visual culture.

More about the researcher: https://www.vda.lt/en/art-and-research/art-and-research-department/odeta-zukauskiene

On 24 October at 14:45 (at Jonas Jablonskis room) dr. Sophia Diamantopoulou from the University College London will give a plenary lecture on Gesture and movement as embodied meaning making: a multimodal social semiotic approach at the International Conference Beyond Words: Persuasive Narratives and Multimodal Discourse.

Online link.

Sophia Diamantopoulou is Associate Professor at the UCL Institute of Education, Department for Culture, Communication and Media. Her expertise is in the areas of multimodal communication, multimodal discourse analysis and embodied learning, with a special focus on museums and English language learning.  Sophia teaches on several MA modules across various programmes at the IOE, including the Applied Linguistics, where is leads the MA module on Multimodal Communication. She supervises MA and PhD students with an interest in multimodality.  She is responsible for the Visual and Multimodal Research Forum seminar at the UCL Centre for Multimodal Research and is co-hostess of the international multimodality lecture series ‘Multimodality Talks’. She has been the chair of the recent International Conference on Multimodality in 2023 (ICOM-11). Sophia is an editorial board member for Multimodality and Society, Museums and Society and the American Journal of Educational Research. For an overview of her publications, see: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/49812-sophia-diamantopoulou and https://multimodalforum.org/ .

The two-day International Scientific-Practical Conference "Telecommunication and Security" in Tbilisi (Georgia) brought together experts from different regions of the world to discuss challenges and issues, as well as scientific, practical and experimental research results in the field of communication and cyber security. Vilnius University was represented by Kaunas Faculty scientists Assoc. Prof. Ilona Veitaitė and Prof. Audrius Lopata.

The event featured lively discussions on critical topics such as the ongoing cybersecurity challenges, internet fragmentation, cryptography, post-quantum cryptography, ethical hacking, consumer security, cyberwarfare and terrorism. The audience was also able to join the discussion and ask questions.

Assoc. Prof. Ilona Veitaitė gave the presentation titled “Challenges of Cyber Security in Modern Society: The Impact of Social Engineering” to show that the influence and application of social engineering can lead to a number of cybersecurity issues for both ordinary IT users and IT professionals. The presentation also included an overview of the project “Safeguarding against Phishing in the age of 4th Industrial Revolution (“CyberPhish”)”, carried out by the VU KnF and partners.

Prof. Audrius Lopata gave the presentation titled “Challenges of Implementing the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) in Practice”. During his presentation, the Professor provided guidance and practical experience based on real-life examples on how to overcome the main challenges in implementing this standard in a specific organisation.

“We had the great honour of hosting outstanding speakers from public institutions, the private sector and the research communities, whose expertise and perspectives enriched the academic conservatism of the event. Keynote speakers came from public institutions in various countries, as well as from the private sector and research societies. Their theoretical and practical studies or experiences made the conference even more interesting and productive,” said the organisers.

Looking forward to further cooperation in this crucial field and to strengthening new international and local links, they also expressed their special gratitude to the conference partners, co-organisers and the nearly 400 spectators whose active participation encouraged the exchange of ideas and cooperation. The conference, organised by the Scientific Cyber Security Association (SCSA) and the Internet Development Initiative (IDI), sponsored by the National Communications Commission of Georgia (ComCom) and “Caucasus University”, highlighted the critical role of cross-disciplinary collaborations in tackling the multi-faceted challenges of telecommunication and cybersecurity.
This year the conference is held within the framework of the conference grant CG-24-220, announced by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia.

Based on the information of Scientific Cyber Security Association - Tbilisi CSA. https://www.2343ec78a04c6ea9d80806345d31fd78-gdprlock/cyberassociation

Conference page: https://conference.scsa.ge/en/

The supporters of the event are the National Communications Commission of Georgia (ComCom) and "Caucasus University".

#TelecommunicationAndSecurity #Conference2024 #Cybersecurity #AcademicDialogue #CaucasusUniversity

“Emerald Publishing” is one of the world's leading digital publishers, commissioning, curating and showcasing research that can make a real difference. It collaborates with thousands of universities and business schools across the world to share knowledge and provoke the kind of debate that leads to positive change. Since 1993, the Emerald Literati Awards have celebrated and rewarded the outstanding contributions of authors and reviewers, not only for their journals and books, but for the body of knowledge itself. The 2024 awards continue the tradition, and it brings us great pride to acknowledge the efforts of individuals worldwide.

This year's winners of Outstanding Paper in the 2024 Emerald Literati Awards are Anna-Maija Lämsä (Faculty of Communication and Kaunas Faculty, Vilnius University, Vilnius and Kaunas, Lithuania) (School of Business and Economics, University of Jyväskylä, Jyvaskyla, Finland), Merle Ojasoo (Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia), Marjut Jyrkinen (Department of Cultures, Gender Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland), and Raminta Pučėtaitė (Kaunas Faculty, Vilnius University, Kaunas, Lithuania), who wrote the article “Discrimination against Young Women Due to their Appearance in Workplaces. Appearance-based discrimination against young women in the workplace” published in “Qualitative Research in Organizations and Managemen”: An International Journal”. The article won the 2024 Emerald Literati Award for Excellence. This award is given for the societal relevance of the problem being analysed, the quality of the research and the relevance of the results to the management of organisations. The article is open to the public until September 2025.