Our World Is Returning To Normal

Our World Is Returning To Normal

ScotSecure West Shows How To Create An Engaging Conference Event

It has been a busy week for me. On Tuesday, I presented an opening keynote at the Borderless Cyber conference at Royal Hollway, London — on one of the things I am most passionate about (citizen rights to privacy and in building a digital world around them):

And then, on Wednesday, it was teaching — and which is by far the most important thing in my week. After this it was a black tie for a CiiSec VIP event:

And, then, on Thursday, I have an endnote talk at ScotSecure West. Friday — thankfully — was back to catching up on things I had missed in the previous three days.

Overall it is great to see things getting back to normal after COVID with all these events, and which are so important in learning new things and meeting new people with similar visions and missions. I believe these events are fundamental in creating new business areas and partnerships and knowing about great innovation and advancement. Overall, the effect on economic development can be as great as anything we do in our normal working practice.

For the endnote talk at ScotSecure West in Glasgow, I even wore my Bob and Alice T-shirt for the event:

And, so, one measure of the success of a conference is the number of people who make it to the final sessions … and as far as I could see, this was one of the largest turn-outs I have ever seen at any conference.

I remember many events in the past where you would get over 200 to see the opening keynote talk, and by the time of the endnote talk, there were less than 20. What’s great, too, is that academia is trusted to give its viewpoint on things that relate to industry practice. And, for me personally, it gave me the chance to look into the future … a post-quantum world … and try and understand the risks and opportunities within our digital world.

Conclusions

May there be many more great events like this, and let’s push forward in partnerships and collaboration and build a more secure, resilient and trusted world for the next generation. The cybersecurity industry is made by people, and not companies, and these events aim to bind our common drive and discuss things that are important to us.

For us, it is a very busy month ahead and alongside Nanik Ramchandani and Zakwan Jaroucheh, we have high-level presentations on areas such as quantum computers, LLMs, Fraud Detection and cryptography with NatWest and Lloyds — and all in my home city. From those years of nothing happening within the pandemic, our world is back — bigger and better than before.