Canada is currently facing a plethora of cybersecurity issues. For example, international and domestic digital crimes such as cyberattacks are threatening Canadians’ safety, digital privacy, and security. Unfortunately, there aren’t enough cybersecurity experts that can solve this issue.
UWaterloo is helping the Canadian government's mission to strengthen Canada’s national cybersecurity ecosystem. They are one of the five co-founders of the National Cybersecurity Consortium (NCC), a non-profit that focuses on critical infrastructure protection, privacy and privacy-enhancing technologies, human-centric cybersecurity, software security, and network security. Recently, they received $80 million to lead the Cyber Security Innovation Network. This funding can facilitate cybersecurity talent and development within academia, industry, non-profits, and government. To date, they have gained the expertise of over 140 researchers at 42 postsecondary institutions, 36 companies, 26 non-profits, and 8 government entities.
Canadian companies like Entrust, Certicom, and BlackBerry were pioneers in cybersecurity innovation; however, Canada needs to step up the pace in terms of generating intellectual property compared to the major players like the U.S., China, South Korea, and Europe to remain competitive and contribute
-Charmaine Dean
Charmaine Dean, the Vice-President of Research at UWaterloo, recently discussed why it’s important for Canada to act now and how NCC can lead the way.