CybHER donates to Dakota Horizons STEM Mobile
April 14, 2022
Dash robots will help promote STEM
“We are stronger together than we are alone,” Dakota State University President José-Marie Griffiths told 65 area Girl Scouts who gathered at Cybersecurity Badge Day in Madison on April 9.
To demonstrate this, she easily broke a single pencil, but when she tried to break a bunch of pencils, she couldn’t. This visualization illustrated how groups can help the field of cybersecurity by working together.
Girl Scouts-Dakota Horizons and CybHERTM worked together to sponsor the day, which included a variety of cyber sleuthing activities that fulfilled the requirements for the girls’ cybersecurity badges. The partnership also included a donation.
Kanthi Narukonda, a DSU graduate student and Chief of Operations for CybHER, announced that CybHER would be donating five Wonder Workshop Dash robots for the Girl Scout's new STEM Mobile Center. This is a new traveling resource that can provide Girl Scouts with hands-on STEM activities, to introduce girls to STEM areas such as robotics, engineering, or cybersecurity.
This is also the mission for CybHER, to introduce more girls to cybersecurity, in the hope that these girls will then become women in collegiate programs, and finally highly trained professionals in the field.
Griffiths also hopes these events and resources help girls develop curiosity and a love of learning. “I learn something every single day,” she said.
Marla Meyer, CEO of the Girl Scouts-Dakota Horizons, told the girls that, “there are incredibly cool, smart women here [at Dakota State],” who prove the Girl Scout message that “Girls can do anything.”
Griffiths agreed. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do anything,” she said.
A former Girl Guide herself (the English form of Girl Scouting), Griffiths said, “working together to help people is what Girl Scouting is all about,” and by collaborating, “we can overcome difficulties.”