It’s over for another year - the floors have been swept clean, the banners have been taken down and the last staff member has been persuaded out of the bar. Intellect’s second Security & Resilience conference took place on Monday in Kensington, and like last year we had a lively day discussing terrorism, flooding, flu, and other threats and hazards. The landscape has evolved, but fundamentally the UK is still very vulnerable to a range of manmade and natural risks, and the technology industry is a key stakeholder in helping build up our prevention and response ability.
The big change from last year was that during yesterday’s morning session, our chairs Clive Richardson and Steve Kingan launched our new Security & Resilience outputs – a market map of customers in the sector, an industry map of companies’ capability, and a wiki for the sector called ‘Securipedia'.Steve and Clive also presented our new position paper, called ‘The Jewel in the Crown’ which calls for a national information architecture so that the UK can have a more joined up security & resilience community. These outputs have been a big part of the group’s work over the last year, and it was great for the programme, and all our members who contributed, to see them published.
The conference was held under Chatham House rules, but we kept track of a few highlights through the day to give a flavour of the event in a ‘live blog’ sort of way:
09.40: John Higgins, Intellect’s Director General, opens the conference using the infamous Hadron Collider as a metaphor for Intellect’s role, trying to make the flow of ideas from industry and Government meet in the middle. Our Defence & Security chair, Clive Richardson, echoes this in his opening address and says he hopes this conference and the paper mark a big turning point in the industry-Government relationship.
10.23: Steve Kingan, chair of Intellect’s Security & Resilience group, introduces the maps and Securipedia, thanking the members who’ve worked so hard on them, and has barely paused for breath before talking about the next phase of work..(Intellect staff start cancelling holiday plans). In the panel session which follows, members bring in some international examples which support our ‘Jewel Architecture’ strategy.
12.05: One of the most interesting parts of days like this is hearing new statistics. During a session on resilience the panel discusses problems like coastal flooding. The sheer number of people likely to be evacuated (and the length of time before they can return home) in this kind of scenario is always mind-blowing. The stat that will stick in the mind, though, is related to the national fire strike in 2002, when over 19,000 armed forces personnel were called in to keep the fire service running. One of our MoD speakers delivers the first animal metaphor of the day with a good icebreaking joke about bunnies and smoking.
14.14: Security & Resilience group Vice Chair, Jim Sibbald, uses the first lines of his address to poke fun at me - I should never have sat near the front. Once the laughter has died down, Jim gives a characteristically thoughtful presentation on the fragmented geographical information area, offering a good practical view on some of the generic information sharing issues the conference has been considering.
15.05: Discussions with our panel on security for the 2012 Olympics have become quite lengthy, and its clear there’s a passion in the room for industry to play its part.
15.15: Conversation continues into the afternoon coffee break, and despite the allure of some excellent scones, delegates are still going over some of the discussion points on protecting national infrastructure in 2012. Some interesting stuff also emerges about how different local authorities are approaching their bit of the games.
15.57: I’m the butt of jokes again, and animal gags appear to be the order of the day. Andrew Fitzmaurice is using a joke about moose hunting to illustrate a point about information assurance, and somehow I’ve been made a character in this tale. Andrew does at least spread the humour around, with a very funny visual gag involving Brad Pitt’s role in the siege of Troy.
16.10: In an unpredictable turn, the panel session on cyber warfare is debating an interesting proposition – whether the lack of recognised global information standards for security equals market failure. The conference isn’t trying to rewrite the modern laws of economics, but drawing on themes from the current financial services debate, members are pushing the envelope in considering whether the sort of market pressures which created a VHS standard, for example, can apply in an area where failure isn’t an option.
17.05: The references are coming thick and fast now. During a discussion on the impact of the sort of architecture Intellect is proposing, Les Gregory from sponsors BAE Systems raises the question of whether Walter Raleigh could have foreseen the effects of introducing tobacco, whether Henry Ford could have understood how the car could change society, and whether Tim Berners-Lee expected the internet he helped build to fundamentally alter our way of living. Heady stuff, and along with the briefings earlier in the day it helps to focus the mind on how contemporary action could shape national security for a generation or more.
17.40: Angela Singh from the Home Office is very complimentary about the leadership role our DG, John Higgins, is playing on behalf of industry. John isn’t quite blushing, but it’s close!
21.10: Over dinner, Gordon Corera from the BBC is involved in a fairly animated discussion with members about the role of the press in security. Over the course of today there’s been a lot of agreement about the centrality of “information” in both the hearts and minds campaign abroad and preventing radicalisation at home, and there’s some back and forth going on about whether the media is a player in the information war, or part of the playing field.
22.00: Coffee and sweets are long since finished, but the chairs are still full of industry and guests discussing the issues raised today. These are serious times in security & resilience, and its clear that the debates which take place in our industry are part of a wider tapestry, and will continue on - which means we’ll be back in a year’s time to see what’s changed.
By Joel Grundy, Programme Manager
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