Hair to Tech

This is our 10th episode, wooo!Craig is a Cyber Security Architect at Liberty Mutual. He's been with Liberty Mutual for 15 years, and doing security for 12 of those years. Craig was also an adjunct professor at Southern New Hampshire University teaching information security. He's had A LOT of experience bringing new people into infosec, which makes him the perfect person to talk to at this point in Amber's journey. Craig and Jen demystify plenty of things for Amber about working for a company, like work-life balance. A few things we talk about include imposter syndrome, continuously educating yourself and growing, 2 key things to keep in mind in infosec, and certifications. Since Craig has such helpful information we'll have him back on for a part two in the near future!Resources from the episode:Darknet Diaries is a great podcast, check it out! You'll learn a lot about info sec without even realizing it because each story is intriguing. Cyber Seek https://www.cyberseek.org/_______________________________________________________Connect with us on Instagram and LinkedIn@hairtotech Episodes filmed and edited by Black Ops AVhttps://www.blackopsav.com/IG @blackopsav

Pax has been in a QA role for about 6 years. She is a mother of 3 toddlers and majored in art in college. She doesn't consider herself a technical person by nature but worked her way up from the billing department at a web hosting company. Pax explains how she transitioned into tech from an art background, and has proven that there is certainly a place for creative thinkers in this world. Her self-directed journey is inspiring and motivating!This episode is a great follow up to episode 7 (creativity translates to computers) and really started shifting Amber's thinking towards working in a not traditionally creative field. Check out Pax's blog:www.yourcodeisnotgoingouttoday.dev_______________________________________________________Connect with us on Instagram and LinkedIn@hairtotech Episodes filmed and edited by Black Ops AVhttps://www.blackopsav.com/IG @blackopsav

Today we talk with Ronda Fisher who is an IT specialist for the US government, and has had her own web design and business branding agency for over 10 years. There is no question that her thorough understanding of back and front end makes her an invaluable web designer! In fact, she was selected for the 2020 Best of Layton award in the Information Technology category! Ronda shares excellent tips about setting boundaries and finding clients that are a good fit, this is applicable to just about any industry. If you're looking for a kick ass website, Ronda is your go to!Learn more about Ronda and check out her work!Website: rfisherdesignsllc.comIG: @rfisherdesignsllcFB:@rfishetdesignsllcLN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/ronda-fisher-ba825a34_______________________________________________________Connect with us on Instagram and LinkedIn@hairtotech Episodes filmed and edited by Black Ops AVhttps://www.blackopsav.com/IG @blackopsav

A lot has been discovered and changed since the beginning of this project. Amber was originally interested in pursuing web development and after exploring more options has decided to follow Jen down the path towards cyber security! If you're a creative or current stylist, this is the episode for you with resources and what the journey has been like so far!If you're interested in making a career change, let us know! Supporting and encouraging others along this journey is hugely important to both Jen and Amber. Resources mentioned in Episode 7 in order:The web developer bootcamp on Udemy that Amber mentioned:https://www.udemy.com/course/the-web-developer-bootcamp/Mindset by Carol Dweck Request at your locally owned bookstoreThe Linux Crash Course on Udemy that Amber mentioned:https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-linux-on-a-weekend/The YouTube video that Amber mentioned for getting started in security:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzDKM7eEweICybrary - Cybersecurity and IT Career Development Platform:https://www.cybrary.it/Learning what a computer network is from IBM:https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/networking-a-complete-guide#toc-how-do-the-bCMvjUM1The Kali Linux quote (originally from Ram Dass)"The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear"_______________________________________________________Connect with us on Instagram and LinkedIn@hairtotech Episodes filmed and edited by Black Ops AVhttps://www.blackopsav.com/IG @blackopsav

Michelle is a Systems Engineer and has over 25 years experience in cyber security, infrastructure engineering, dev ops, and has lead many engineering teams. She loves and is fascinated by technology and has dabbled in many many areas.It turns out that Michelle's mom was a cosmetologist for over 25 years, and also ended up changing to a career in tech doing graphic design! Creativity transfers into many avenues including technology. We talk with Michelle about her start in tech, social engineering, phishing, finding a good company culture, and so much more!Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-ashby-11296713/The Udemy course Amber referenced to learning Linux is:https://www.udemy.com/course/learn-linux-on-a-weekend/Connect with us on Instagram and LinkedIn@hairtotech Episodes filmed and edited by Black Ops AVhttps://www.blackopsav.com/IG @blackopsav

Lucretia has been in IT for over 20 years. She is currently in a project management role over risk controls and compliance, codes over 10 languages, has been in health care, education, and utilities, and earned her Masters in Project Management and PMP certification! To sum it up, Lucretia is the whole package!Lucretia pointed out that stylists already are project managers, WOW. Who knew the skills you develop in running your own hair business are totally applicable to many other industries, especially communication?!( Amber definitely didn't realize this until Lucretia connected those dots!)Learn how brilliant Lucretia is on LinkedIn!https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucretia-may-pmp-ms-86980419Connect with us on LinkedIn and Instagram@ hairtotechEpisodes filmed and edited by Black Ops AVhttps://www.blackopsav.com/

We talk with Ayla who is a software engineer for Recurison. She is on their data engineering team and spends a lot of time working on cloud infrastructure and building data services. Jen and Ayla help Amber understand a few new tech words - Dev Ops, Kubernetes, and JVM. Ayla mentions how helpful understanding cloud services is, and to always keep learning!You can learn more about Ayla on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/aylaykhan/The web developer bootcamp on Udemy that Amber mentioned can be found herehttps://www.udemy.com/course/the-web-developer-bootcamp/Connect with us on LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/hair-to-tech-podcastFollow the journey on Instagram@hairtotech

In Episode 3 Jen and Amber interview Holly Grace Williams. Holly has been in security for 13 years and is currently the technical director of Secarma, a cybersecurity consultancy firm specializing in penetration testing. She has a YouTube channel and blog about security, check them out!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo8a...Blog: https://gracefulsecurity.com/

Amber and Jen discuss some education and training options. Also, hipster moments.Minor correction -- the degree was a Masters in Computer Information Systems, not cybersecurity, and I swear Jen wasn't drinking. Good grief.University of Utah: Cybersecurity Bootcamphttps://continue.utah.edu/proed/academy/certificate/cybersecurity-bootcampUniversity of Utah: Coding Bootcamphttps://continue.utah.edu/proed/academy/certificate/web-coding-bootcamp

Amber starts her journey towards tech and Jen commits to finding women in technology fields to talk to Amber about what they do and how they got there. Here are the links to the articles we discuss on this episode:National Science Foundation: By age 6, gender stereotypes can affect girls’ choices. https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=190924&WTFast Company: The gender gap in cybersecurity puts us all at risk for online crime. 5/30/2020 https://www.fastcompany.com/90511054/the-gender-gap-in-cybersecurity-puts-us-all-at-risk-for-online-crime