How to run a Girls Go CyberStart Club

Are you interested in helping your students become the next leaders in cybersecurity? By joining Girls Go CyberStart as an advisor, you’ll play a key part in expanding a generation of girls cybersecurity knowledge.

The role of a Girls Go CyberStart advisor is to provide students guidance, motivation, and support through the program. In this blog, we’ll talk you through the key things you’ll need to do run a successful Girls Go Cyberstart Club and how to get the most from your students and our program!

How to become a Girls Go CyberStart Advisor and run your own club

Step 1: Register for the program

Register for Girls Go CyberStart at: https://ggcs.online/join-advisor

Step 2: Invite your students

Once you’ve registered your details, follow the steps on the website and via email to invite your students to take part and set up your Girls Go CyberStart Club.

It’s that simple! A few things to consider when registering:

• To ensure our emails can reach you and your students, you may need to whitelist our domain: girlsgocyberstart.org — if you aren’t sure how to do this, your IT department should be able to help
• When inviting your students to take part, ensure you copy your unique Club Assess Code correctly for them.
• To take part in the competitions and progress to CyberStart Game, your students MUST be registered as part of a club.

How do I keep my students interested in Girls Go CyberStart?

We’ve designed Girls Go CyberStart to be super fun, so we hope you’ll have no problems in this area! The key things to remind your students about whilst they’re playing any of the three stages of the program is to work together with their clubs to solve the problems.

All the material needed to run a successful Girls Go CyberStart Club exists within the online program. The learning tools are effectively step-by-step guides that allow students to work on challenges by themselves and at their own pace. Our favourite phrase to remember is, ‘Google is your friend!’ Encouraging your students to research outside of the program is a great way to ensure they succeed.

‘Google is your friend!’

But I don’t know anything about cybersecurity — how can I advise my students?

Don’t worry! Neither teachers and students need any experience to be successful in Girls Go CyberStart. Your role is to act as a facilitator. The tools in the programme are effectively step-by-step guides which mean students of all capabilities can progress at their own pace. Encourage students to independently research and work together to solve challenges. There are plenty of resources on our social channels and blog as well as online.

‘Encourage students to independently research and work together to solve challenges.’

Will I need any special equipment?

CyberStart Assess and the first five levels of CyberStart Game can be run on a modern browser e.g. the latest version of Chrome or Firefox. The majority of these challenges can be completed with normal browser functionality, but for some challenges you will require access to the browser developer tools, which are typically easily enabled. In some instances, you may also require scripting capabilities if you make it to the higher-level challenges.

A heavily restricted computer will allow you to complete many challenges, but to truly explore cyber security you will need some advanced access and tools. If browser developer tools and scripting tools are blocked or restricted, some challenges will not be completable.

Students who make it to more advanced content will require will require a virtual machine, which is installed with all the tools required to complete the programme. Instructions on how to setup the software and the virtual machine will be made available at the required stage. Student computers will need to be able to run VMWare Player or VirtualBox on a Windows or Mac device respectively. You can find a guide to setting this up here.

So, what are you waiting for? Register for Girls Go CyberStart today and start your club!

Girls Go CyberStart is a fun and interactive series of digital challenges that introduce high school girls to the field of cybersecurity. Girls compete in three stages for the chance to win cash prizes for themselves and their school plus scholarships towards college. Registration for the program is open from December 3 to January 31, with CyberStart Assess opening on January 13. For more information and to register, head to https://ggcs.online/medium