Stewart Harrison, Head of Physics at Bayside School, Gibraltar, and who has been successfully running the Cyber Centurion Programme in Gibraltar, was invited to make a presentation at the Save the World (Wide Web) conference at Chester University last week.
Save the World (Wide Web) event was jointly organised by Manchester University and the Information Assurance Advisory Council. The aim of the conference was to bring together education and industry to look at ways to inspire young people to take up careers in the important, ever-expanding and economically significant digital sector.
A number of cyber experts including speakers from Facebook, Europol, AmTrust International and University academics also presented at the conference. There were over 100 delegates in attendance at the event.
Mr Harrison’s presentation looked at the work that has gone into making Gibraltar a Centre of Excellence for education in Cybersecurity. He also spoke about the strategies implemented to break down gender barriers, the approaches taken to enthuse neurodiverse learners, and how partnerships made with private sector companies were setup and used to provide training and career pathways to students. Stewart also introduced the proposal behind a Gibraltar Cyber Challenge and learning platforms used to teach and expose digital skills to Gibraltarian youngsters.
Cyber Centurion is part of the Cyber Security Challenge UK. This is a series of national competitions, learning programmes, and networking initiatives designed to identify, inspire and enable more people to become cyber security professionals. Established to bolster cyber skills, it offers a unique programme of activities to introduce sufficient numbers of appropriately skilled individuals to learning and career opportunities in the profession. Engaging the interest of Gibraltar’s young people, the Cyber Centurion Programme in Gibraltar has become a vibrant programme that supports entry into the digital industries by Gibraltar’s students.
Also involved in the recent launch in Gibraltar of the Duke of York Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award, Mr Harrison continues his successful work to develop opportunities for essential digital education and training for Gibraltar’s budding digital entrepreneurs.
