West Midlands Cyber Working Group to relaunch during Birmingham Tech Week
A virtual team of volunteers dedicated to strengthening the regional cyber ecosystem will commence their operations at a relaunch happening as part of Birmingham Tech Week.
The West Midlands Cyber Working Group (CWG) focuses on fostering partnerships, skills development, and collaboration to support the UK’s National Cyber Strategy.
The relaunch will happen on Thursday, October 24, from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm, hosted at Gowling WLG, 2 Snowhill, Birmingham B4 6WR.
Speaker include;
- Pam Waddell OBE – Director of Innovation Alliance for the West Midlands
- Simon Bennetts – Inventor and Lead Developer of Checkmarx ZAP
- Cian Galvin – Head of Cyber Skills and Professionalisation at DSIT
Wayne Horkan (pictured), head of technology and engineering at Cyber Tzar will chair the group which is made up of volunteers.
The CWG includes representatives from Greater Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, Midlands Cyber, Sustainability West Midlands. West Midlands Growth Company, WMCA, Innovation Alliance for the West Midlands (InnovationWM), Sustainability West Midlands, ROCUWM, WM CRC, Aston University, Birmingham City University, CyberFirst/IN4Group, University of Birmingham, University of Wolverhampton, University of Worcester, DSIT, NPL (UK Telecoms Lab), Cyber Chain Alliance, Cyber Q, CyberCy, eSpida, Gowling WLG, LexVerify, Marston Search, Metcloud, Pinsent Masons, SCC, School of Coding and AI, Trowers & Hamlin, Verlingue, with more organisations joining up as we relaunch.
The group is also responsible for reviewing funding programmes for Cyber related projects on behalf of DSIT, and recently reviewed the “Cyber Local” funding programme, which had a really great set of applications from across the West Midlands.
Wayne Horkan said: "Cyber safety and resilience are critical to the future of business, and if we truly want to make the UK the safest place to live and work online, as outlined by the NCSC, then we can’t just cheer from the sidelines.
“The West Midlands Cyber Working Group (WM CWG) aims to unify and strengthen the regional cyber ecosystem by fostering collaboration across government, academia, and industry, supporting DSIT's Cyber Security Pillar one of strengthening the UK’s cyber ecosystem."
