Kyla has always dreamed of being an influential figure in the field of STEM while inspiring others to do the same. Starting her tech-journey at the age of 7 by learning Scratch, Web Design, and Lego Mindstorms, Kyla instantly grew a curiosity to explore the possibilities with technology. However, it wasn’t until the summer before freshman year that Kyla discovered her passion for cybersecurity, fascinated by the task of protecting our future Internet of Things and our massive loads of data. With this discovery, she also learned how 90% of cyber-attacks on national infrastructure were due to human error, a problem, she felt, future generations could not be burdened with. To combat this, Kyla founded Bits N’ Bytes Cybersecurity Education in her freshman year of high school, a company that now sustains over 20 national partnerships with school districts, nonprofit organizations, education-based organizations like Discovery Ed., and United States Congressman. Kyla travels for public speaking and writes for her own blog on topics including social engineering, data privacy, malware, and password protection. For all her work, Kyla has been nationally recognized by Stanford University’s She++ #include program as a 2017 fellow, awarded the Prudential Spirit of the Community Award from Prudential, and, most recently, distinguished as a Global Teen Leader under the Three Dot Dash We Are Family Foundation. Additionally, Kyla recently published a chapter about student entrepreneurship with Rowman and Littlefield, as a contribution to a larger book, Student Voice: from Invisible to Invaluable by superintendents Dr. Michael Lubelfeld, Mr. Nick Polyak, and Mr. PJ Caposey.