By James Packer
(ISC)² London Chapter President

I’m very much looking forward to moderating the diversity panel at the Secure Summit in September. The topic of skills and diversity in the industry is a deep passion of mine as I feel we need to continue to be a forward looking industry, carefully considering the demands of the current age of technology and the trends of technology consumption amongst the next generation.

As President of the (ISC)² London Chapter, this is an area of focus for us as a Chapter; we are currently developing our Education Framework, which is a strategy that outlines areas where the Chapter perceives risks that we have some capacity to influence for the better which includes information security education for those outside of the industry from all walks of life.

I will present some of the detail on our Education Framework at the Secure Summit, however, to give you a sneak peek; we are proposing plans to our membership to develop a Chapter-based Advisory Service which will eventually be available to the general public. We are also proposing plans to get out in to schools and do our part to help share knowledge to the next generation.

Whilst these proposals are in their infancy currently, we are being ambitious with what they will deliver; the targets we are looking to achieve in due course through these initiatives are being able to respond to circa 1000 queries to the Advisory Service and to deliver in excess of 30 knowledge sharing sessions in the community and schools across London per year, reaching more than 600 people. We are looking to enlist the expertise of our members to help us meet these targets; and we are aiming to assemble a team of 20 volunteers to drive this work.

The Chapter recognizes that we are not the first to undertake such activities; we are looking to team up with existing initiatives in these areas and leverage existing learning materials to maximize our impact; the (ISC)² Secure and Safe Online initiative is a basis for us as an example that we will be taking in to action on the ground; the Garfield Series of learning materials has proven both popular and successful, we will hope to further continue its success hands on.

I look forward to sharing more information on our upcoming initiatives at the Secure Summit and look forward to seeing you there!

All the best,

James Packer