Kyla is 21 years old and a senior at Stanford University, originally from from Deerfield, IL. The summer before freshman year of high school, when Kyla was just 14 years old, after attending an NSA GenCyber Camp, Kyla discovered a unique passion for cybersecurity. Specifically hearing that that 90% of cyberattacks were due to human error, Kyla was mobilized to take action in her local community. To combat this critical issue, Kyla founded Bits N’ Bytes Cybersecurity Education (BNBCE). Kyla has championed her message of cybersecurity resilience on national and international stages including TEDxChicago, NIST’s NICE Conference, RSAC-USA, and RSAC Singapore 2019. Additionally, noticing the gender imbalance in cybersecurity, she also became the cofounder of GirlCon Tech Conference, Chicago’s premiere tech conference that unites 300+ industry professionals and students annually to discuss bridging the gender gap. For her work, Kyla has been honored as Crain Chicago’s Top 50 in Tech, a Stanford She++ fellow, a 2018 Global Teen Leader, and a 2019 Harvard Book Prize Award winner.
