Durham College, a partner and sponsor of SiberX, is participating in the siberXchange Live Summit this week to showcase new opportunities in autonomous vehicle and cybersecurity research.
Mahdi Raza, the founder of SiberX, said that making sure the event was accessible by everyone, including children, was critical.
“We have education tracks where we have things for kids and we have sessions for adults and seniors, as well. So what we’ve done is we’ve taken the global nature of the world right now and we are trying to give as much free, but important information to people from all walks of life.” Raza told the publication. “We understand some people just get on just for one specific thing and leave. We have brought the government into this, as well. So, we have the mayors and economic departments of the Municipality of Durham, Municipality of the Region of Niagara, City of Brampton, and Pickering. We have these people coming on to talk about something else, not cybersecurity, not education, but about the economy.”
In addition to showcasing the school’s Centre for Cybersecurity Innovation and its latest research, the college will also be discussing collaboration opportunities in Ontario around autonomous vehicles and cybersecurity, according to Ali Hirji, Durham College’s project manager for the AI Hub. More importantly, he added, the event is focused on talking about cybersecurity without the technical jargon.
“Cybersecurity is not an easy topic, it’s one that requires a lot of analysis and technical accuracy and this event will give kids a chance to learn how they can talk about it in simple terms. They will also get a chance to network. One of the biggest things that are happening right now with COVID-19 is that kids are meeting face to face meeting new people. This is a very simple chance for them to keep doing that,” Hirji told IT World Canada. “This is one of the first cybersecurity events which is not purely technical. For example, you have the CEO of Smokes Poutine who will be talking about the importance of supporting local and securing your economies in different ways. There’s something in it for everyone. That’s the key message.”
Organized by SiberX, siberXchange Live is an online summit that will recreate the in-person conference experience. The summit will feature over 50 sessions for professionals, students, parents, and children focused on securing businesses, municipalities and core services.
The summit will also have sessions conducted by privacy expert Ann Cavoukian, who will also be delivering keynotes. Bruce Croxon, and Tanmay Bakshi, among many others, are expected to chime in as well. There will be demos featuring executives from IBM, Palo Alto, and others. In addition, participants will be able to experience virtual booths, exhibit spaces, and be a part of the networking lounge, and more for two days and get 14 CPE credits.
Cavoukian, the former information and privacy commissioner for the Canadian province of Ontario, will be talking about the threat to privacy in our freedoms resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. She said she wants to reach out to people in public safety and security.
“Whenever there is a massive crisis, privacy takes a hit. Because under emergency powers, you can basically put on hold privacy laws and do what is considered to be necessary, in this case, for public safety. My concern is that the tracking of surveillance of individuals associated with COVID-19 is significant and I fear that there is no end to it. We need firm clauses where any additional collection of information must stop, and all the information collected must be deleted. We need to ensure that privacy is preserved well after the pandemic ends, and it will, but what cannot end is our privacy which forms the foundation of our freedom,” she said.
SiberX has built an online platform to host this two-day event. The company says the software for the video is integrated through Zoom. The platform can handle up to 100, 000 people at once, said Raza.
“We decided to use Zoom because it is the most popular and most trusted one and used by the majority of the world. So, it will offer the ease of accessibility,” said Raza.
Scheduled to be held on May 28 and 29, anyone can register to the summit for free here.
SiberX is a customized platform for training, events and skills development. The platform uses industry certifications to train and test professionals.