Highlights from Singapore Cybersecurity Education Symposium 2020

The inaugural Singapore Cybersecurity Education Symposium (SCES), organised by the Cyber Security Agency of Singapore (CSA), held on 19 to 20 November, was the first-of-its-kind in the region.

The event is one of the key initiatives under the  SG Cyber Educators programme, which objective is to grow a passionate pool of secondary and tertiary school teachers, and Education & Career Guidance counsellors to be familiar with cybersecurity to interest and guide their students to make cybersecurity a choice for their education and career.

The two-day virtual symposium successfully brought together industry partners, academia and government, with the objective to equip educators with a better understanding of cybersecurity and career outlook. Sessions were centered around the following themes:

SMS Dr Janil Puthucheary delivered the opening address as the Guest-of-Honour (GOH). Dr Janil said a whole-of-nation effort is required to strengthen our resilience and cyberspace, as well as grow our ecosystem of professionals and businesses, and urged all stakeholders to participate actively in such initiatives. SMS Dr Janil’s full GOH speech can be found here.

The programme also saw exciting sessions helmed by leaders and practitioners from CSA, Standard Chartered Bank, (ISC)2, BlockCyber, FireEye, NUS, KPMG, Group IB and youths from various Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs). The various webinars and panel discussion delved into in-demand skills in cyber, current students' journeys in cyber, how the industry operates and there was even a networking session which allowed attendees to connect with others in the cybersecurity ecosystem.

The event had more than 500 educators in attendance. They gave positive feedback about the inaugural event and appreciated that the sessions were kept accessible and understandable for the layperson. They said that the event helped debunk the myth that “cybersecurity is for techies only” and showed that cybersecurity is a growing sector with good and diverse opportunities for those who were open to learn and take them on.

More information on the SCES programme and speakers’ bios can be accessed below.

Additional resources:

• Session Videos on CSA's YouTube Channel