Press Conference for Commencement of 2021 GiCS, its First Year in Taiwan

The press conference today (February 3) was to kick off 2021 GiCS (Girls in CyberSecurity), also the first GiCS in Taiwan, under the auspices of the Board of Science & Technology, Executive Yuan, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Technology, and implemented by the National Center for High-Performance Computing and Taipei Computer Association.

Minister Tsung-tsong Wu of Science and Technology, Deputy Director Wen-hui Liu of Information Department of Ministry of Education, Director Nuan-hsia Yu of Information Security Office of the National Security Council, President Wan-chi Hsu of Small & Medium Enterprise Guaranteed Fund of Taiwan, General Manager Shu-ming Li of SPLUNK opened the ceremony for the event along with top-notch scholars and corporate elites in Taiwan.

Group photo at the press conference of 2021 GiCS: (from the left of the back row) Director Ming-jun Hsieh of IBM Global Information Security, General Manager Shu-ming Li of SPLUNK, Deputy Director Wen-hui Liu of Information Department of Ministry of Education, President Wan-chi Hsu of Small & Medium Enterprise Guaranteed Fund of Taiwan, Minister Tsung-tsong Wu of Technology, Academician De-cai Li of Academia Sinica, Director Nuan-hsia Yu of Information Security Office of the National Security Council, Professor Bing-cheng Yeh of Electrical Engineering of National Taiwan University, CEO Hui-ting Chuang of TechOrange, (front row) students of Taipei First Girls High School and Taipei Municipal Songshan Senior High School.

The arrival of 5G, digital transformation for corporates, change of lifestyles and the society, development of smart cities and national defense have been adding to the number of connected devices in our life. This has greatly enhanced the need of information security. The National Information & Communications Security Development Plan released by the Executive Yuan in 2017 has laid out a comprehensive blueprint. President Tsai Ing-Wen in her meeting with the information security elite team and senior high school students in 2020 advocated four information security policies: development of female tech talents; education of information security at early ages; the balance of developments in southern and northern Taiwan; and encouragement of information security startups.

2021 GiCS has started from today. There are two thematic activities: (1) Next Challenges – a combination of online and physical passes in collaboration with PaGamO in Internet-of-Things (IoT) and autonomous driving for participants to go through; (2) Creativity Unleashed – creation of innovative use cases selected by the judges in the final competition for a range of issues on daily life and information security. The competition consists of two groups, one for senior high schools and vocational schools, and the other for colleges and universities. The purpose is to encourage students to participate in the variety of activities, so that they can develop the ability to think innovatively and independently and enhance the knowledge and competences in information security. The final competition for the two thematic activities is scheduled for April 24 at Shalun Green Energy Science City-C area, United Research Centre. There will be challenges for physical checkpoints, autonomous driving, smart homes, as well as showcases of creative use. Information security companies are invited to the event. It is hoped that the experience of new applications and technologies can enhance awareness and response in information security.

2021 GiCS is a joint effort from industries, government and academia under the planning and organization by different government agencies and experts. This competition is designed to encourage learning in information security at senior high schools, vocational schools and universities. It is also aimed to inspire interest in the subject matters, to break from the mould of gender-based choice of specializations with boys studying sciences and girls studying humanities. The thematic activities intend to introduce to students the basic concepts in information security so as to cultivate interest from an early age. This will help in the development of information security talents for the future. The competition and the connection with corporates for internships and job opportunities are intended to plant the seed for the female talent pipeline in information security. Information about the activities will be announced in the official website at https://gics.tw/. All students who are interested in this topic are invited to stay tuned.