Cyber Security students attend NCSC Innovators Challenge Event

MSc Cyber Security students Keira Pascua, Urmilla Sridharan, and Daniel Thomas, took part in the NCSC Innovators Challenge, held by the National Cyber Security Centre; a part of GCHQ. The 3-day event, held between 28 February and 2 March 2022, aimed to facilitate discussion between students from NCSC-certified courses and industry to encourage innovative solutions to cyber security challenges.

Dr Virginia Franqueira, Deputy Director (Education) of the Institute of Cyber Security for Society (iCSS), said: ‘We were very pleased to see three of our students selected for this amazing opportunity of creative thinking about cyber security challenges in a professional setting.’

Students came back from the event enthusiastic about their experience.

Urmila said: "The event was brilliantly practical and working together with some of the best students from other universities in person was a great experience. I also got the opportunity to interact with a lot of industry experts from NCSC, GCHQ, Deloitte, Plexal, Lloyds bank, etc. who shared the most efficient & effective strategies for bringing an idea to life. Overall, it was a very engaging and focused workshop."

Keira said: "I had a great time during the event! It was very insightful to learn new ways of developing solutions that would target cyber security issues of today. The rapid implementation of the design thinking process suits the ever changing environment of cyber security and was useful when getting ideas out to develop them further, especially within just three days."

Daniel said: "I liked meeting other students and hearing about their course and talking about cyber security topics with them. I have never spent a whole afternoon just talking about different cyber security topics before. It also gave me a whole new way to think about modern cyber security problems."

Chris Ensor, Deputy Director for Cyber Growth of the NCSC, said: ‘I'm delighted students have come together to take part in our Innovators Challenge, giving them an invaluable opportunity to learn from industry professionals and put their cyber studies into practice. Creating opportunities for young people to work together and apply their skills is vital for inspiring the next generation of cyber talent to innovate and keep the UK safe online. We thank the industry mentors for their support with this event.’