Boost Your Career: Get Practical InfoSec Experience in Your Community

Awesome. Good afternoon, guys. Uh, please get settled in. Uh, welcome back to Bides Las Vegas Proving Grounds. This talk is titled Boost Your Career: Good Practical Infosys Experience in Your Community and it's given by Ashley Chiaak. So, a few announcements before we begin. >> Nice save. Save that. Few announcements before we begin. U we'd like to thank our sponsors, especially our diamond sponsors, Adobe and Iikido, and our gold sponsors, Formal and Run Zero. It's their support along with our other sponsors, donors, and volunteers that make this event possible. These talks are being streamed live and as a courtesy to our speakers and audience, we ask that you check to make sure your cell phones are set to

silent. So, if you haven't set your phone to silent, this is the time to do so. If you have a question, you'll be using the audience microphone that I'm holding in my hand uh so that YouTube can hear you. So, if you have a question, please raise your hand. I'll bring the mic to you. As a reminder, the Bides Las Vegas photo policy prohibits taking pictures without the explicit permission of anyone in frame. So, I would advise everybody to please refrain from taking any pictures unless explicitly allowed. These talks are all being recorded and will be available on YouTube in the future. With that, let's get started. Please welcome your speaker. >> Hi everyone, my name is Ashley and I'm

here to talk about getting hands-on experience while being involved in your community. Before we start, a little bit about me. I am getting my lighter than air license to become a hot air balloon pilot. Not only that, but I also volunteer at a local ice ring. And then I am a SAP user by day, but the reason why you're all here is I volunteer and I'm president of a nonprofit in Northern Nevada. A little bit about my club is we are part of the oldest service organization in the world called Lions Club International, which we're in 200 countries and we have over five or 1 million members. We have global causes such as youth outreach and eyesight

and Lions Club in or Reno Cigar Lions Club. We're a specialty club from them that we use our own take on eyesight that kids cannot fully see without access to computers in our society today. Well, our club has a program called computer for kids where we give lowincome students grades K through 12 laptops or desktops depending on their age. And then since 2006, we have given over 15,000 units and have taught double the amount of those in our community on how to use them and practical experience in security, privacy, and open source. Once a month, we hold a two-hour lab session where we focus on teaching the students how to use their computers and what they can do with them.

Some of the topics that we like to talk about with those students is the different operating systems and why we use Linux verse Windows to give them their computers because we can easily just give them a Windows computer at the what we get donated to us. We also talk about how there's different file management systems and how the storage differs, but they can use it with their schools. We've tested with all of the IT programs in the area to make sure that they communicate with what the students use. Once the students are in front of their computers, we like to have them create their own user accounts. And when they do that, we make them create a strong

password. But since we're talking about kindergarten through seventh grade, for the most part, we have them do long passwords instead of tough ones with some of the special tools. So instead of doing something hard, we like to make them put their favorite ice cream. So we like to say, "I love chocolate ice cream." Just to get them in the habit of doing something a little bit more complex, not just password. And after we go through creating their accounts, we then go ahead and talk to them about the different open source tools they have available to them with their computer such as Blender and Libra Office. And of course, Blender is always their favorite part. They end up getting

sidetracked and learning how to use Blender, but they also get to learn all about the other tools that they're able to do. During the disc the during the session after we have them create everything. We teach them about all the tools. We talk about safety on the internet and how we don't want to share our passwords with strangers or put any information about ourselves online just to get them in that habit at a younger age. that way. How do you start teaching kids about cyber security is always going to be the basics. We can't really teach them super super advanced things, especially if it's going to be their first time owning a laptop or a computer.

And for our parents that do join, we like to reassure them that their students are getting a secure computer where we have parental control parental controls so they're not accessing the internet for adult content. And while we do have guild, we do have the opportunity for students to learn more about computers, we also help our volunteers learn more about how they can gain their hands-on experience and skills to boost their career or to get into the tech industry. Our members range from those who are lawyers and accountants who just have a passion for or open open source or it's people that have been in the tech field for a long time or people wanting to break into the

industry. And for those who want to break into the industry, we teach them how to load Linux onto the computers and make sure that all of them are uniform. So when we are teaching a lab for these students, they're able to have the same exact program next to each other. So there's no miscon when they're learning how to do anything or they're trying to find any of the tools that we have preloaded onto those computers. In a survey that was done by GDH in the tech industry, we have seen a 25% increase from 2022 to 2024 that employers are seeking skill-based hiring. And how many of you here have either wanted to apply for a job but you

weren't qualified for the skills that were on the requirements or you were in a position where you needed more people in your role but your manager was saying that you didn't have any applicants that had the skills to be hired on. So, our club, we've been helping those in our community and those who have volunteered how to get those hands-on experience while they're trying to get into the industry.

And by teaching others in the community, you're also getting a return on your investment. Not only are we seeing a bunch of hands-on skills being taught and learned, but you're also getting a few other skills as well. So personally I have seen an improvement in my project management skills which I have learned a lot being president unfortunately. Um having to manage the logistics of our computers, keeping track of our inventory, making sure we have all the cables and the power and just enough students signed up for our lessons for the month and making sure that we have enough. Oh, sorry. Sorry, I lied. There we go. There we go. So, also having um making sure our members are on task

and making sure that they're loading enough computers for our giveaway, whether it be the correct amount of desktops or laptops because it changes every month how heavy of each one we have. Making sure that we have all of those has definitely been a moment and a skill that I have learned a lot from. And not only for project management, learning those little tiny skills, but seeing the overall picture of all the decision-making we are making for making changes from what type of open source we're using or what type of USB we're using to gain them access to the internet because most of the desktops that we have donated to us do not have a hardline or Wi-Fi adaptations to it.

Another plus of volunteering is that the hours of your volunteering can go towards continuing your professional education. So getting your CPE, which I don't know about any of you, but it's a huge bonus if you're going to spend some time of your life helping those in your community. Um, another part of volunteering is that while getting these tangible skills, you're also getting some of the soft skills that you need to improve in your career. So during our labs, there's always one person in charge of the event and in some cases it is me. Sometimes it is not me. I like to hand off the duty to someone else just so they can get the skill as well. But it's managing the

lab. Always when making a lab, there's always some issue with some of the computers that you don't foresee and having to troubleshoot or collaborate with other members of your group. You have to figure out who would be the best person to fix those solutions. And in doing so, I have learned how to be a stronger leader and to have better organization skills of knowing where all of our tools are just in case we need to fix a computer or reload something onto a system or having to find the little tiny adapter that's hidden in a box that was moved around from our storage unit to the giveaway. since they are in a secondary location from where all our

equipment is. I've also learned a lot about troubleshooting issues as well as enhancing my skills by managing a vast range of personalities. Not only those who volunteer in our club because we have a lot of budding ideas of what they think would be the best in our club, but also our students and the parents that come in wanting a computer. They are coming from all over our community and they all have different ideas of what they should be getting from our club and knowing how to manage those people and also the situation so things don't escalate or things are as smooth as possible. In a most recent deote impact survey done in 2016, there was 92% of the

respondents agreed that volunteering improved employees broader professional skill sets and 80% of the respondents said that active volunteers move more easily into leadership roles. Not only can you gain those hard skills to break into the industry, you can also gain the soft skills needed to climb the ladder in your organization. Lastly, one of the best skills you can gain in your networking career is or your career is networking in those industries. So, currently in the last two years, sorry, one second. In the last two years, we have partnered up with the center for internet security where they needed um user base to test on of they wanted to do a CIS compliant compliant desktop version of what server CIS compliant

they already had. But without those user base, they didn't really have a need to do it. Enter our club. we have a CIS ambassador in our group and he thought why don't we partner up with them and we can make a CIS compliant desktop for our students. So now we're offering a safer, more secure computer for them without them even really realizing it. But also helped us improve our skills and how we can go about teaching our students how to be more secure. Um we had weekly meetings. I don't think I've had any meetings more with acronyms that I did not understand, but it pushed me to learn a lot more about the background and having to do kernels. Um,

I got got me out of my comfort zone of even joining those meetings. I was too intimidating. I'm new in the industry. So, I was like, I don't know what I'm going to contribute. But just having that outside perspective of, oh, like that makes sense and I think this would be better for our students definitely taught me a lot and all of our volunteers that were able to join those meetings. And I also wanted to talk about a few of the success stories of why we still have been doing this in our club for over 20 years. Um the first story I'd like to talk about is we had a foster student who was about to age out of the system. He came

in about 101 15 years ago and during that session he was kind of excited that he was getting a laptop of his own. He didn't really think much of it but as he wanted to figure out where he wanted to go in his career he thought back to the Linux laptop he received and with that laptop he decided he wanted to go to community college. Then he went on to get his bachelor's and then lo and behold he ended up with his master's degree. He now owns a tech company in the Pacific Northwest and about two three years ago he came into one of our giveaways because we hold on the same day of the month every year for the past

10 years in the same location and he told us that he got into the tech field because of the Linux laptop. Not only did he get into the field and decided that he wanted to pay it forward what we paid forward to him, he now hires students that are aging out of the foster care system as 18year-olds to get into the tech industry. So, it was really cool to hear that not only did we impact his life in a way, that he was able to impact those around him as well. My next favorite story I always like to talk about is about three little girls and their mom that came to our meeting. She there was one her she was 7 years

old. She was a middle child. Her two sisters didn't really care about computers. They were just there but she was so engaged in the lesson. She was asking questions. She even at one point was like four or five steps ahead of what we were even teaching and started helping the kids around her. And a few months after she got her computer, she sent us a letter. And in that letter, she told us that she put her mom's book keep or her books on wow words Libra Calc and she was now helping her mom with the finances of her cleaning business. So, not only were we helping her get access to the internet to do her schoolwork,

but she was also able to help her mom better their lives by keeping track of their finances in a easier way. I mean, at the age of seven, she was doing bookkeeping, which is kind of crazy to me. So, I'm excited to hear back from her and see where she ends up going in the future. Lastly, now I talked about some of our students, but I also wanted to talk about one of our volunteers that has come through our organization in the last year. He was working at a pizzeria. He wanted some change, but he didn't know how to go about it. He came across our club, started volunteering, learning the ins and out of how to load Linux,

and he started doing a lot of command line projects on those. And he decided to also get some certificates. Well, last month he actually just got hired at a leading AI data center that was local to us that was starting up in our area. So without other further experience or without joining the club and getting that hands-on experience, he would not have been able to get that job as quickly as he wanted. So I talked about how I help our community and how our club does it. But let's talk about how you can bring this to your community. One thing you can do is you can join us online at our Lions Club. We meet once a

week and we discuss how to improve what we do. We can also teach you how to bring it to your community. you can bring that to a local Lions Club in your area and start your own computer for kids program. And if you do that, the reason why we like to do it is because they have a lot of backing and support of how to build a nonprofit. Or you can also go a more simple route. You can find local labs in your community, whether it be your YMCA, a community center, your local libraries, and start teaching basic skills to students or adults in the area, whatever you're passionate about in cyber security, because I know it's so

diverse. I know that there's so many niche things you can teach, it wouldn't hurt to start teaching those around you about it. And we're all in this together. There's no way that I could not do it without the people behind me in my club. You can always reach out to me anytime if you have any questions at renoscarions@gmail.com or you can text me at 803303 lion. I did make this phone number just for this talk so I didn't have to. [laughter] So that's why it's lion, but I will have it on all times. So, if any would like to reach out and ask questions of how they can get involved in their community or just how to start a nonprofit for it,

you can ask me anything. I'm available all the time. And if you have any questions, just please let me know. Thank you. [applause]

This is not very cyber security specific, but I'm always curious, you know, when people are involved in volunteering because I volunteer quite a bit too. Um, how did you choose the Lions? There's a lot of civic different civic organizations, you know, like Quiwanis or uh Rotary. Why the Lions Club? Um, so for us, we chose a Lions Club because we had quite a few in the area and one of the members who wanted to start the club was already part of a different Lions Club. So that's part of the reason why we chose them. However, they're a fantastic organization and they're very supportive of our specific needs and wants for doing this task and project that we didn't want to choose

any other one. Um you talked about uh giving away thousands of computers to kids. Can you remind me the number and then how do you source those computers? >> So we gave we have given away over 15,000 computers to kids in our community. And currently we run a e-waste program for businesses in the area. So any business wants wanting to donate either laptops or desktops, we'll go and collect them and refurbish them. If the ones that we get from them don't quite work, we'll just recycle them with an e-waste person. So, we're not putting in the landfill. So, it's kind of a two for one special. They're not putting it in landfills and we get computers for

our students, especially now that Windows 10 is no longer um a wanted item. There's quite a bit of companies that are donating those types of laptops and computers. Uh I just have a question about the um the secure mintbased desktop you guys developed with CIS. Is that is there like a image or is it a set of like is it just some settings? Do you guys have that available? Something like that. >> So we don't currently have it available to the public. We're still doing the testing with our students, but once we do a lot more testing, it should be released in the next year in 2026. But it's just a lot of kernels in the

background for having more security on it.

Thank you everyone. [applause]