The Countdown to Christmas...

While the weather was slightly kinder to us last week, it was the turn of public transport to cause disruption with industrial action resulting in a few events to be postponed. It’s frustrating, but sadly an occupational hazard. However, at least none of us were stuck on the Elizabeth line on Thursday...

Anyway, another busy week. Highlights below:

On Monday, I attended a workshop at the offices of a major London law firm about the impact of the new European Union Artificial Intelligence Act which is currently being debated on the other side of the Channel. Awareness of the Act is very low in the UK, but it will have significant impact on all businesses who share data across the EU (some say even bigger than GDPR). We also discussed an opportunity to create a Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence in London focused specifically on SMEs. There were some outstanding people around the table who are incredibly passionate about helping SMEs understand the opportunities AI presents. There will be another workshop in the New Year.?

On Tuesday, we had a Community Outreach event in Lancaster Gate, Westminster where the team helped raise awareness of the support available to businesses from the Centre, NCSC and the Metropolitan Police. We had 5 officers join us on the day, which I think is a record. However, it was clear that there was a great relationship between policing and the local community in this part of London which helps us massively. We also had a catch-up meeting with the Fleet Street Quarter Business Improvement District (BID) following the recent events we did with them. We got some great feedback about how successful it was including a brilliant example of where some businesses were even telling their neighbours about us after we’d left. We’ll be doing much more with the Fleet Street BID next year as the area goes through a huge transformation. Also on Tuesday, I had my first training session on our new CRM system. ?

On Wednesday, we were due to be in Maida Vale, but had to postpone it until this week. I was also due to speak at the Data Protection and Cyber Security Summit hosted by DWF, but couldn’t get into London (despite my train company not being on strike that day they still decided not to run services). However, we did announce Stewart Room from DWF as the latest addition to our Advisory Board. Stewart is a fantastic addition and is one of the UKs leading legal experts on cyber whose experience and knowledge will be immensely valuable to us. Speaking of the Advisory Board, we’ll be making announcements about two further appointments in the New Year.

As a result of being stuck at home, I joined the monthly CRC Directors Council which was another really positive session. There’s some great work going on around the country and lots of great ideas.

On Thursday, Hannah started the first in a series of interviews for Cyber PATH students and represented the Centre on the monthly Security Everywhere webinar hosted by our good friend Francis West. We also had a great session internally about expanding our use of volunteers next year. I was delighted that we were joined by Edafe Eduviere who leads our Volunteering and Community Outreach workstream. Edafe leads the London Chapter of ISC2 who have been developing their own volunteering programme which aligns perfectly with our thinking. I’m really excited about the opportunity to create an army of volunteers across London to significantly increase our reach. Leanne from the NPCC and I have been talking about this in relation to the Police Digital Specials and Volunteers (PDSV) programme recently. I’ll be talking more about our plans at the quarterly National Police Chiefs Council meeting next week. I also arranged monthly meetings with the Cyber Griffin team within the City of London Police to mirror the arrangements we have with the MPS.

Then finally last week, on Friday, I started the day meeting with an initiative called ‘Startup Sherpas’. They have been set up to help 13-19 year olds gain work experience and ultimately, become entrepreneurs. They have recently moved into the cyber space with a project funded by HMRC. I then met with the two Kevins and Tor to discuss the setting up of the Industry Advisory Council. It’s coming on really well and will be a great way of building effective relationships with the vendor community. We also had our weekly team meeting to discuss our plans for next week and beyond.

Looking ahead to this week:

On Monday, ?while Hannah takes some well-earned leave, I’ve got a meeting with another major law firm, a planning session with the organisers for the Cloud and Cyber Expo Conference at London’s Excel next year and a meeting to discuss one of the national Workstreams, which I’m Vice-Chair of.

On Tuesday, I’ll be attending Day 1 of the quarterly NPCC / CRC Meeting at the Guildhall, while Hannah will be continuing her interviews with prospective Cyber PATH students. We’ve also got a Community Outreach event in Fenchurch Street.

On Wednesday, Hannah will be attending a meeting of the Haringey Partnership Problem Solving Group while I’ll be at Day 2 of the NPCC / CRC meeting. In the afternoon, I’ll be making the short trip to City University to join Professor Raj, Philip and Carrie to discuss the Multi-Disciplinary Centre for Cyber Security and Society (MOBS).

On Thursday, we’ve got a Community Outreach event in Maida Vale, more Cyber PATH interviews, while I’ll be in Birmingham with Professor Raj and Mark Child from Quantum Evolve for a workshop with the UK Cyber Cluster Collaboration (UKC3) Board.

Then we finish the week on Friday with our regular team meeting. I’ll be in London joining the Chair of our Advisory Board, Richard Starnes for a meeting with one of our key stakeholders.

With just two weeks to go until Christmas Day, we've still got several Community Outreach events to deliver in what has been a fantastic 12 months. We've already got lots in the diary for January and February with more to be arranged.

Next week, I'll start to share some of our findings from the first 12 months of the programme. We'll be producing an annual report early next year with more detail and analysis, but there's some really interesting stuff coming out...

Simon