Innovation, Science and Economic Development ISED Canada just announced that NCC has been selected to lead the Cyber Security Innovation Network CSIN! You can find the ISED news release here in English and French.
Today, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, announced that the National Cybersecurity Consortium (NCC) will receive up to $80 million to lead the Cyber Security Innovation Network (CSIN). This funding will help foster a strong national cyber security ecosystem in Canada and position the country as a global leader in cyber security. In order to expand Canada’s national cyber security ecosystem and increase collaboration between academia, the private sector, not-for-profit sectors and other levels of government from across Canada, CSIN will enhance research and development, increase commercialization, and develop skilled cyber security talent. By encouraging partnerships between academia and industry, the network will help address the shortage of cyber security specialists. And by leveraging Canada’s highly skilled workforce, world-class universities and growing cyber security industry, CSIN will support Canada’s leadership in cyber security. - Govt. of Canada
Many people at UWaterloo worked very hard to make NCC’s proposal a success. Prior Executive Director of CPI, Florian Kerschbaum, did the heavy lifting, leading UWaterloo’s contributions to the proposal up until the submission.
Our VPRI Charmaine Dean and several others from the Office of Research (OR) were instrumental in this initiative: Bernie Duncker co-ordinated OR’s contributions towards this proposal and helped in numerous ways from obtaining support letters, organizing resources form OR, and contributing to the proposal writing itself; Colin Russell’s role in leading business development for NCC has been substantial; Bernie Duncker and David Tweddell took care of financial matters. Charmaine serves on the NCC board which played a pivotal role in both setting up NCC as well as in reviewing the draft proposal and providing advice and feedback to NCC’s Directors.
An internal advisory group, consisting of Bernie Duncker, Sanjeev Gill, Ian Goldberg, Michele Mosca, Bill Munson, Mei Nagappan, Beth Palmer, and Colin Russell met with the CPI team fortnightly to provide assistance and guidance for proposal preparation.
Several members of CPI and WatSPEED contributed shovel-ready project proposals and helped define the themes for the various networks within NCC. Mei Nagappan who leads the Software Security network within NCC, shaped the scope of that network. - CPI Executive Director N. Asokan