Thin Mint Cookies

America is months away from one of my favorite times of the year, Girl Scout cookie season.  Each year I buy Thin Mints.  When sitting down to enjoy them, I finish them quickly, often not realizing how many have disappeared until the box is nearly gone.  While I don’t own a green sash, I probably deserve a badge for the number of boxes of Thin Mints I’ve devoured in my lifetime.  A few years ago, the organization changed the recipe for these treats, admittedly, I was concerned, but my worries were laid to rest quickly once I sank my teeth into the new version.  Now, recipes are not the only changes happening in the organization. 

In just over a year, Girl Scouts will be able to earn badges in cyber security.  Teaming up with Palo Alto Networks (a security company), a new curriculum is being developed which will be deployed across the nation, helping to eliminate perceived geographic restraints often associated with technology industries.  In just a few years, there will likely be hundreds of thousands of girls with new cookie skills.

As you surf the internet, your web browser stores packets of information from websites called cookies.  Often they are harmless and help the online experience.  Have you ever visited a retailer’s website, put something in the shopping cart, left the site without completing the purchase, and then returned days later to find the item already in your cart?  Cookies.  However, according to Symantec Corporation, some cookies are nefarious, designed to create security issues on your computer by monitoring where you are going and what you are doing online.  Girl Scouts will be working to better understand these threats in the near future. Pretty cool. 

The Girl Scouts are adapting to keep up with modern times while not abandoning the essential skills taught through cookie sales.  As our economy becomes more technologically anchored, cyber security’s importance increases.  Now America has a nonprofit organization helping to start the training process for the next generation of cyber professionals while continuing to satiate my Thin Mint habit. You got to love that.