Thought leaders join cyber and COVID panel at Digital City Festival 2021

The panel will be chaired by Victoria Knight, Strategic Campaigns Director at BAE Systems. She’ll be joined by:

• Neil Jones, Head of Cyber Security and Innovation at GM Cyber Resilience Centre 
• Raj Badiani, Head of Digital at Raytheon UK
• Professor Richard Greene, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange at Manchester Metropolitan University
• Saskia Coplans, Founder and Security Consultant, Digital Interruption.

Coplans was recently announced as Director of Innovation for cyber, data science and AI at HOST Salford, which is Digital City Festival’s Lead Sponsor – Skills & Technology.

The panelists have a vast range of cybersecurity experience and will discuss what we can learn from the global crisis which the whole world faced over the past 12 months, and what changes which have been made ought to remain.

Victoria Knight, panel moderator and Strategic Campaigns Director at BAE Systems, said: “The last 12 months has driven digital transformation at an exponential level of pace. Through an increase in the level of remote working, businesses and services, increasingly moving our lives online, the opportunity, risk and volume of incidents for cyber-crime has increased.

“Despite this challenge, the cyber sector has grown and remains economically significant. This panel will bring together sector experts from across Greater Manchester and will discuss what the last 12 months has meant for the cyber landscape. For a sector that has experienced unpredicted change, growth and uncertainly, the panel will discuss what can we learn from a global crisis, to ensure we build back better.”