Dug Campbell

The Cyber Academy Launches In Edinburgh

In a post almost exactly two years ago, I talked about a concern of mine that I’m pretty certain I share with many who work in the ‘technology’ sphere in general. To summarise, if one of the primary goals of education is to provide kids with the skills that they need to secure employment in later life, how can the teachers of today possibly keep up with the pace of progress?

As Noam Chomsky said in an interview I read this week,  “If you are teaching today what you were teaching five years ago, either the field is dead or you are“. And if the majority of kids in school today will end up working in jobs that don’t currently exist, it’s clear that finding ways to bridge that widening gap will become increasingly critical.

The thought hit me again today as  I went along to the launch of The Cyber Academy at Napier University this afternoon. The new venture, which pulls in a wide range of collaborators from across academia, government and business, is focused on developing an environment which will produce many of the people that are so badly needed as security threats continue to rise daily in our increasingly-networked society.

There were a number of interesting talks but the one that stood out for me was by John Howie who gave a great summary of just how far we’ve come and the challenges that lie ahead in a world where everyone – with a little knowhow – can use the mobile in their pocket to access any other connected device in the world. A situation which of course is only going to become more complicated if the much-trailed Internet of Things suddenly explodes (hence the blockchain solution that IBM have been investigating).

John also drew a key distinction between information security – defending data contained within your own database or system – and cyber security – a term which has no accepted definition but which he convincingly argued relates to the interconnectedness of such databases. For example, if malware attacks your system, how do other databases then react and collaborate to ensure that overall that weakness become systemic across a networked world.

It’s a great programme and credit must go to Bill Buchanan who has clearly championed and worked hard to build the idea and ultimately deliver an Academy that has the potential to gain significant importance over the next few years. From a personal perspective, I’m also intrigued to see how it evolves within our post-Snowden society. And, of course, if there’s going to be a raft of highly-skilled new cryptographers coming knocking about in the area, who knows, I *may* just happen to redirect a few towards the Scottish Bitcoin Meetups…