A couple of months ago, the Cyber Marathon was just a thought, just an idea about challenging myself to do something big for our community in Scotland (and maybe a bit further away). Last year we had an incredible outreach with people from all over Scotland and the UK registering for our events. I organised 12 online and 1 in-person event during CSW2023.
The unexpected effect was that the online events took a life of their own. So when I looked back at the tallies, it appeared that we reached 633 people in Scotland and the rest of the UK, but that was only 30% of the registered audience. It turned out, that the rest came from 48 other countries from every continent (bar Antarctica). About 4% of the audience declared a disability (which means the number is probably higher) and 49.1% were female.
In the beginning, I had visualised the Marathon as a personal challenge and I was thinking small.
But then, all the things mentioned above, presented me with an opportunity and a challenge at the same time: What can be beneficial to Scottish communities, businesses, charities and individuals, while at the same time promoting the work done in Scotland to a global audience? The answer was a Cyber Marathon with many special guests.
I had invited a couple of friends already, to break the monotony of me presenting for 24 hours! More people were contacted and when I made the first announcement, more people contacted me and volunteered to join in and help.
Within a week, I had booked most of the slots with guest speakers, who would either present something, or join me in a conversation, or both. The Cyber Marathon will now start at 09:00 GMT on the 27th and will end at 09:00 GMT on the 28th of February.
I would like to take this opportunity to NAME & THANK all who are participating in the Cyber Marathon.
The list is in order of their presentation slots:
Tuesday 27 February 2024
[09:00-09:45] Scott Killen, Employer Liaison Manager for Graduate Apprenticeships at Edinburgh Napier University.
[10:00-10:45] Beverly Bowles (Head of Cyber), Nicola Taylor (COO) and David Ferguson (Head of Data & Cyber Development Lead), ScotlandIS
[11:00-11:45] Cary Hendricks, CEH, CHFI, CIH, CCT, ECSA, CEI, Global Operations Director at ID Cyber Solutions
[12:00-12:45] James Kwaan CIPM CISM CISSP, Intelligence CTI leader and Fmr. IR leader, Lloyds Banking Group
[13:00-13:45] Steph Wright, Head of Scottish AI Alliance, Co-Founder Diverse AI
[14:00-14:45] Basil Manoussos, Expert Witness (Strathclyde Forensics), Cyber Academy Manager (Edinburgh Napier University), Cyber Marathon Runner!
[15:00-15:45] Laura Irvine, Partner and Head of Regulatory Law at Davidson Chalmers Stewart LLP / Accredited Specialist in Data Protection Law.
[16:00-16:45] Jacob Duane, CEO at Stellastra
[17:00-17:45] Eng. Selene Giupponi, Expert Witness (Digital Forensics), MD (Europe) at Resecurity Inc.
[18:00-18:45] Don Smith, Lead of CTU Threat Research, Secure Works
[19:00-19:45] Christine Eckford, lecturer at West Lothian College and co-founder & CEO of the charity “Citizens of Cyber”
[20:00-20:45] Brian Baglow FRSA, Founder of Scottish Games Network
[21:00-21:45] Sharon Moore MBE, Transforming with technology | Driving for inclusion at IBM
[22:00-22:45] Mark Mitchell, Cyber Security Expert
[23:00-23:45] Christopher Church, Digital Forensics Expert, INTERPOL
Wednesday 28 February 2024
[00:00-00:45] Mark Cunningham-Dickie, Principle Incident Response Consultant, QUORUM CYBER
[01:00-01:45] Dr Adrian Smales, [plays with robots], Heriot-Watt University, National Robotarium
[02:00-05:45] Basil Manoussos (four different presentations
[06:00-06:45] Annabel Turner, Lawyer, Founder of “Cybersafe Scotland”
[07:00-07:45] Basil (again …)
[08:00-09:00] Keith McDevitt, Incident, Vulnerability & Exercising Coordination Lead, Scottish Government
There are no words to describe how happy I am that all the people mentioned above decided to take some valuable time off their very busy schedules (and some, off their night sleep) to support my Cyber Marathon and to help create awareness on so many topics related to cyber, as well as promoting the great job done here in Scotland, in this particular field.
A simple “thank you” is not enough to express how much in debt I am to all of you. This event would not be anything as good as it promises to be, without your selfless support and volunteered time and effort.
Cyber Scotland Week is probably at the top of many initiatives that aim to bring the experts and communities together and deserve all our support.