Dear CAE Colleagues: With support from National Science Foundation, Award #1303441 (Capacity Building in Cybersecurity: Broadening Participation of Women In Cybersecurity through the Women in Cybersecurity Conference and Professional Development), Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) began as an effort to bring together women (students/faculty/researchers/professionals) in cybersecurity from academia, research and industry for sharing of knowledge/experience, networking and mentoring. Since then, with support from various industry, government and academic partners, WiCyS has become a continuing effort to recruit, retain and advance women in cybersecurity. Conference website: www.wicys.net WiCyS 2017 program: https://www.csc.tntech.edu/wicys/2017-program/ WiCyS features: • Held in Mid-March to Early April annually for approximately 800 • Registration is controlled to ensure 50% students, 50% educators+professionals+others • Registration fee is heavily subsidized and 100% students and 40% faculty are given scholarships to cover lodging • Held at venue with lodging and conference facility and airport transportation connectivity Although overall conference management will be administered by the Cybersecurity Education, Research and Outreach Center (CEROC) at Tennessee Tech University, to enable WiCyS to move across the USA each year we will be looking for passionate and dedicated educators from 4-year academic institutions to take up the opportunity of partnering with us by becoming the local host of the conference. Local hosting means the institution will be primarily responsible for arranging the conference logistics (hotel booking, conference facility, onsite registration, conference bags/swags, food and room management). Also, the co-chair from the selected institution will provide feedback to the conference chair in overall management of the conference. Benefits of local hosting include (but not limited to): • opportunity to collaborate with other CAE institutions (one of CAE criteria); • visibility in the cybersecurity community; • reputation in commitment towards diversity in cybersecurity; • opportunity to network with major industry professionals/educators; • exposure of and opportunity for students to industry/government/academia. The WiCyS project will bear direct costs associated with conference logistics and will be sub-awarded to the institution selected to be a local host. The local host institution will receive complementary WiCyS passes (including registration, lodging and meals) for the hosting team (faculty/staff/students). In addition, travel stipends will be given to two faculty for any other travels to benefit/promote the conference. We are especially interested to host WiCyS in the Northeast or Mid-West region for 2018. If you and your institution are interested in hosting WiCyS, please submit a formal proposal for the WiCyS steering committee to review here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WiCySHost2018Application • Application Deadline: March 8, 2017 • Decision: March 13, 2017 • Attend WiCyS 2017 for Announcement Any questions can be directed to Ambareen Siraj (Director, CEROC) at asiraj@tntech.edu Thank you. Ambareen Siraj Associate Professor, Computer Science Department, Tennessee Tech Director, Cybersecurity Education Research and Outreach Center WiCyS Founder and Chair