2023-08-01 14:13:51
The biggest hacker festival in Latin America, Roadsec, broke a record attendance and had more than 7,200 participants. Female participation in the 2023 edition was more than 17% of the total number of people who followed the more than 100 activities, distributed in 8 thematic axes and happening simultaneously in 10 stages. In this edition of the event, 51% of the speakers were women, an increase of 15% compared to the 2022 event.
The big winner of the CTF (Capture the Flag) championship was a woman, Emily Souza. CTF is a type of cyber security competition in which participants compete to find and exploit vulnerabilities in systems with the aim of finding and “capturing” a flag.
“It was a feeling of nervousness and happiness, there were a lot of good people competing, despite being a mostly male area, I believe that everyone who participated put in a lot of effort to learn technical skills and that brought the results we saw in the competition”, reports Emilly Souza. She believes that women have gained more and more space in technology, including the security area. And that in the future we will have a greater number of women working with offensive security.
In a market still dominated by men, the interest and entry of women in the field has been optimistic. as it points catho researchthe female presence in technology positions increased by 2 percentage points in 2022, rising to 23% of positions in this sector.
The female speakers addressed various topics, from Attack axis issues to Back-end content during the event.
Giulia Bordignon, Senior C# developer and back-end speaker, highlighted the importance of the female presence in the cyber security market. “I’m very optimistic regarding the future and women in the field, I’ve always talked regarding diversity and promoting a diverse environment. When I started I was alone and today I realize how important it is for an event like this to have women as speakers, to generate empowerment, representation. I am very happy with what I saw here in the face of this challenge, which is to include more women in this market”.
Adriana Saty, Content Creator at WebSaty, was one of the highlights on the main stage and reinforces that today there are many women leading technology communities. “I am very proud and happy to see how women are increasingly representing and bringing a place of comfort for other women to start their path and enter technology”, says Saty.
Young audience dominated the event
Participants following Roadsec’s extensive programming were predominantly 21-30 year olds (+41%). Another piece of data also reflects the power of the event: more than 1.2 tons of food were collected through solidarity tickets for the NGO Casa de David.
The event, which is on its way to its 10th edition, attracted people from different regions of Brazil, who traveled to follow the diversity of activity options and networking opportunities. George Luis Azevedo Santos is one of those who faced a few hours of travel to honor the event.
“First of all, it’s regarding networking, having new contacts here. But also more knowledge of the advancement that technology is bringing to our area and how companies are looking to specialize. If I had already participated in this event before, I believe I would be more engaged and better suited to the job market today”, says George.
Brazilian technology market is heated
In addition to activities for all areas of interest within the hacker universe and activations, the event featured companies that also offered vacancies in their teams, which remain open and can be accessed through the website. There were more than 50 specialized vacancies offered during the event, in addition to the vacancies that were already open in these companies.
The company NTT Data was present at the event with 6 specialized vacancies. The company’s intention in participating was to recruit people and offer career guidance, since most of the participants are in the initial phase of their professional career and a strong aspect of the company’s activities is training.
NTT Data’s HR senior manager, Rafael Gonçalves, says that this was the company’s second participation in the event and that, in the previous year, some people who passed by NTT Data’s stand entered the company’s internship programs; the expectation is that the movement will be repeated this year.
“Doing employer branding within Roadsec is very important for us because we position ourselves, mainly as a company that is concerned with information security”, he comments.
Also, as Rafael noted, the Brazilian market is lagging behind in terms of the number of professionals ready to work in the area of technology. The tendency is for this scenario to continue, as shown by a study by Brasscom, which indicates a demand for almost 800,000 employees by 2025. This fact is confirmed by a survey by the World Economic Forum that brings the profession of information security analyst and specialist in AI as one of the professions with the greatest growth potential.
The CEO and creator of the event, Anderson Ramos, highlighted how the demand for technology workers was repressed due to the pandemic. In addition, he pointed out that security is essential, as well as risk management for companies; therefore, if the risk increases, the demand also follows the same line.
“I always say that first we build a ‘community’, then an event and maybe you build a business model. In the case of Roadsec, in these almost 10 years, I believe that we have addressed the first point in creating this community well”, says the CEO.
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