It is certainly strange times for us all at the moment and I hope you and your businesses are doing ok during this period of restricted movements and social distancing. We would love to hear from you if you feel there is anything the cyber cluster can do to help the cyber community to survive and even thrive during this time.
I wanted to highlight some opportunities and updates which may be of interest:
- London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA), have launched the call for our fifth cohort of technology and cyber innovators. After speaking to industry experts about their cybersecurity needs and in response to the challenges of COVID-19, We are now recruiting cybersecurity scaleups throughout the UK and abroad with solutions that create a more robust and resilient digital economy. Applications close May 4th – see here
- The DCMS Cyber Exchange website has been relaunched – if not aware of this website it is worth registering your company to ensure you receive updates directly but also to get your business onto the UK cyber ecosystem – see here
- DASA have an open call for innovation – they are looking for innovative ideas to improve the defence and security of the UK. Your idea could be a concept, product or service, at various levels of maturity – see here
- Have you become involved with 5G or considering this as a future opportunity? 5G Create is an open competition within the 5G Testbeds and Trials Programme. Up to £30 million of government funding will be available, aiming to explore and develop new use-cases and 5G technical capabilities with security being a key area of focus– see here
- Covid Accelerator – not strictly cyber security related but important to us all as a society so if you know anyone that is finding themselves with time on their hands due to the current circumstance please make them aware of this
In the wake of many events being cancelled, ScotlandIS have gone online. We have already run a number of webinars aimed at COVID-19 response which have been recorded and our on our website. Some of our upcoming webinars are below and if there is anything else you’d like to see included please let us know:
- Thursday 9th April at 11am – Technology Trends and COVID19
- Women in Cyber – Our next Women in Cyber event will be run as a webinar on May 5th. This will be the second of these events with the last being a roundtable in February. Meetings will run quarterly. If you would like to get involved please drop me an email.
We have pulled together a coronavirus hub with a number of resources to help tech businesses responding to COVID-19.
In addition, ScotlandIS are working closely with Scottish Government to tackle the issues of digital exclusion and isolation in the wake of COVID-19. This involves a variety of public and third sector bodies and different companies. We’re working together to identify the most vulnerable with no digital access. Many of our industry partners have come forward to offer assistance, either in the shape of devices, connectivity, training and support to facilitate the operation. This is of huge societal importance and the support from the industry has been fantastic. There is still more scope to get involved. Drop me an email if you’re interested.
If you want to find out more about the cyber cluster please do get in touch – email me at ciara.mitchell@scotlandis.com It would be of great benefit to the cluster to understand better the challenges you may now be facing and how we can help address them.