Global cybersecurity initiative welcomes first African partner from Nigeria

Tuesday July 17, 2018 05:24

Global cybersecurity initiative welcomes first African partner from Nigeria

Posted by David Crozier

The Global Ecosystem of Ecosystems Partnership in Innovation and Cybersecurity (Global EPIC) today welcomed the University of Lagos (UNILAG) – Nigeria as its first partner on the continent of Africa. They join 21 others in 13 countries across North America, Europe, Asia and Oceania.

Global EPIC partners are co-creating and adopting world-changing solutions to high-impact cybersecurity challenges, both current and emergent. They also combine their knowledge, experience and expertise, together to deliver soft landing programmes for cyber security SME’s seeking to access new markets, develop innovative solutions, drive knowledge sharing, perform trend analyses and research, influence policy and set standards on a global level.

David Crozier, President of Global EPIC and Head of Strategic Partnerships and Engagement at Queen’s University of Belfast’s Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) said “Now, more than ever, it is vital that the global cyber security innovation community comes together to collaborate, share knowledge and to solve these challenges which respect no borders. I am delighted to welcome UNILAG - Nigeria as our first keystone partner organisation in Africa.”

Sunday A. Adebisi, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Director, Entrepreneurship & Skills Development Centre
University of Lagos said "Today, Nigeria and many nations of Africa have risen to the fact that for wealth to be created, industrialization attained, unemployment overcome and poverty eradicated, entrepreneurship and innovation development remain the answer and cyber-attacks need to be conquered to achieve these milestones. Business globalization comes with the threats that create exposure to intellectual property risk, financial risk, internet frauds, personal data cyber-attack and several other e-related risks; University of Lagos is poised to lead the frontier in Africa to raise the awareness and help build capacity and capabilities of individuals and groups that will defend Africa’s wealth against the present intimidating global cyber-attacks."

Global EPIC has set a target of 50 member cyber security ecosystems by October 2020. Further information on Global EPIC can be found at https://globalepic.org/.

The 22 ecosystems are:

B-Hive (Brussels, Belgium), bwtech@UMBC (Baltimore, U.S.A.), Camaras (INCYDE) (Madrid, Spain), Carelton GCR (Ottawa, Canada), CETC (Massachusetts, U.S.A), CROW (Waikato, New Zealand), Centre for Secure Information Technologies - CSIT (Belfast, U.K.), Cyber Leadership Alliance (Indiana, U.S.A), Cyber Wales (Cardiff, U.K), Cyberspark (Be’er-Sheva, Israel), CyberTech (San Diego, U.S.A.), Hague Security Delta (The Hague, Netherlands), IAAC (Wiltshire, U.K.), ITRI (Taiwan), Kosciuszko Institute (Krakow, Poland), LSEC (Heverlee, Belgium), Politecnico di Torino (Turin, Italy), Procomer (Heredia, Costa Rica), Surrey Innovation Boulevard (Surrey, Canada), UNB (Fredericton, Canada), UNILAG (Lagos, Nigeria), Union Square (North Carolina, U.S.A.)