Head of Cyber Ciara’s September blog discusses some of the major upcoming cyber events, internationalisation opportunities and the finalists of our inaugural Cyber Showcase programme.
With summer feeling like the distant past, it is great to see many from the cyber community out and about – in particular at the recent CIISec dinner and conference. Naturally some events in the last week have been cancelled due to the passing of Queen Elizabeth as a sign of respect to the amazing female leader who achieved so much in her time, and who will be missed by many throughout the world.
Next up is SASIG Edinburgh, Cyber Resilience for National Security Conference in Aberdeen, and ScotSoft 2022 all happening on the same week in September! In early October, we are exploring securing Fintechs as part of Fintech Festival, which is a great opportunity to bring the FS/Fintech and cyber community together. Please do join us!
The Cyber Showcase is progressing well, with the 12 participating companies now selected. They will now participate in a 6-week programme focussed on pitching and public speaking in preparation for the Cyber showcase event on Nov 24th. Details can be found here.
Internationalisation
Having had a wonderful meeting with DIT Scotland recently, I wanted to highlight to companies that if you are seeking to explore markets beyond the UK then there is lots of support available for you from SDI and DIT, both of whom have staff in many countries across the world who can help connect you with the local community and make those key introductions.
ScotlandIS Cyber is also a member of Global EPIC, a community of cyber clusters, so we can also connect you with cyber clusters in a number of countries too. I also recently had a great conversation with the cluster manager from the newly formed Costa Rica cluster who are looking to expand this across LATAM. They would love to hear from Scottish and UK cyber companies looking to expand into South America.
On that note I wanted to highlight ONE Conference, Europe’s prime cybersecurity event, held in The Hague, The Netherlands. A leading platform for sharing knowledge, best practices and research results, this year’s edition will take place on 18 & 19 October 2022. Connected to this is Cyber Investor Days at The Hague Security Delta Campus on October 17th – a pitching event for European cyber companies looking for funding, co-organized with the European Cybersecurity Organisation. If anyone is interested in learning more about ways to connect to this conference (attending or pitching), then please let us know and we will connect you with SDI.
Cyber Showcase
We are delighted to announce that the following organisations have successfully applied for the programme:
- PolyDigiTech
- Haelo
- TrueDeploy
- LastingAsset
- CyberShell Solutions
- HighGround
- Lupovis
- Dewar Cyber Consulting
- Nectis Ltd
As the showcase is being run in partnership with Cyber Runway and will be part of the Cyber Runway Scotland event, Scottish Cyber companies who successfully applied for Cyber Runway were also given a free pass into the programme, this includes OSP Cyber and SafeShark.
These companies will now participate in a 6-week programme focussed on pitching and public speaking training in preparation for the Cyber Showcase event on November 24th, which will take place at the UK Astronomy Technology Centre, Edinburgh.
This is being held on the same day as the Scottish Cyber Awards, so it will be a full day of celebrating Scottish cyber innovation and successes across the entire cyber community.
A huge thanks to the adjudication panel who were made up of:
- Charlotte Waugh, Edinburgh Innovations
- Steven Hamill, Scottish Edge
- Diane Gilbert, Plexal
- Elaine McKechnie, Virgin Money
- Alan Greig, Cyber Advisor
Thank you also to Beyond Blue, our first sponsor of the Cyber Showcase programme.