To celebrate International Women’s Day on 8 March, Michelle Price sits down with three leading women in cyber and technology. Joining us on episode 19 of OzCyber Unlocked is Kate Pounder, Chief Executive Officer of The Technology Council of Australia, Professor Lesley Seebeck, Honorary Professor at the ANU and in our spotlight, we’re joined by Melinda Cilento, CEO of CEDA. 

Despite the clear business case for gender parity, women are still significantly underrepresented in senior executive teams across the nation’s top public companies, as well as being underrepresented in the pipeline for these roles. 

In this episode, Michelle Price asks our panel about how we can get more women in to positions of power and why only there are only 18 women leading companies in Australia’s top 300 listed ASX companies. 

We’re also discussing some sobering statistics found by the 2021 Australian Census that it will take 65 years for women to hold 40 percent of executive leadership positions in Australia and whether gender quotas are helping women or hindering them. 

Kate and Lesley reflect on their careers, offer some fantastic advice and talk about why stereotypes and discrimination have no place in our modern society. 

For the special edition of our spotlight, Melinda Cilento speaks about the economic cost of a lack of diversity and what benefits diversity and inclusion can bring to not only the financial side of a business, but day-to-day operations. In fact, Melinda points us to research out of Canada that shows organisations that had three or more female board members, managed cyber security risks better than those with fewer. 

“The more diversity and inclusion – the better” 

Useful links:

Australia's gender equality scorecard: https://www.wgea.gov.au/publications/australias-gender-equality-scorecard

 CEW Census: https://cew.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/CEW-Census-2021-Media-Release-210908.pdf

https://apo.org.au/node/313941#:~:text=Key%202021%20findings%20include%3A,%2Dlisted%20companies%20(6.2%25)

It’s our first episode of OzCyber Unlocked for 2022! This month, AustCyber's CEO Michelle Price speaks to two passionate advocates for building Australia’s next generation of cyber employees - Evan Williams, the Australian Director at Microsoft 365 Business Group and Dr Bobby Cerini, Questacon’s General Manager of Science and Learning & Deputy Director.

Dr Cerini runs us through Questacon’s new Australian Cyber Ready Program, which was launched during Australian Cyber Week. Designed for students aged 8-13 and their teachers, the program aims to improve cyber security skills, awareness and job readiness through a series of interactive and creative challenges. 

AustCyber has also partnered with Microsoft to deliver a new Cyber Security Traineeship Program. Mr Williams discusses why this program is important for participants, industry and our economy, and explains how cyber ‘boot camps’ will encourage anyone from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines to get involved in the sector with a focus on diversifying the talent pool.

We also discuss how we can continue to build, inspire and ensure programs such as these continue well into the future. 

This month, our spotlight features Dr James Curran from Grok Academy. A not-for-profit organisation, Grok Academy is the amalgamation of the Australian Computing Academy (ACA) and Grok Learning. Their focus is to educate, empower and inform through learning platforms, curriculum, professional development, and teaching resources. 

Useful links: 

• Questacon’s Cyber Ready Program – https://www.questacon.edu.au/cyber-ready-program
• Questions –  cyberready@questacon.edu.au
• Cyber Security Traineeship Program (site to be relaunched soon) –  https://www.megt.com.au/news/2019/12/cyber-security-traineeship-program 
• Volunteer at Grok Academy – grokacademy.org or support@groklearning.com 

This month, we look back at what has been one of the most challenging years on record. The pandemic and lockdowns dictated changes to our ways of working. On the upside, we all became more deeply connected to the cyber physical world around us. Unfortunately, it also meant greater risk from cyber criminals and foreign state actors.

In episode seventeen of ‘OzCyber Unlocked’, AustCyber’s CEO Michelle Price speaks to Hamish Hansford (Group Manager and Head of the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre at the Department of Home Affairs) and Chris Painter, (President of The Global Forum on Cyber Expertise Foundation) about how the speed of change has exposed new vulnerabilities; how we can protect our digital borders; the progression of critical infrastructure legislation; the ongoing cyber skills shortage in Australia, and the big trends that will have an impact on 2022 and beyond.

This month, our cyber spotlight features Vikrim Sharma (Founder and CEO of Quintessence Labs). In a world where data is too important to be compromised, Quintessence Labs delivers powerful data protection, enhanced by the quantum power of nature. This includes centralised enterprise key and policy management, a high-speed true random number generator, an integrated hardware security module, and highly secure encryption for data in uncontrolled environments.

For more information about the organisations featured, visit:

• Cyber and Infrastructure Security Centre at the Department of Home Affairs: www.cisc.gov.au
• The Global Forum on Cyber Expertise Foundation: www.thegfce.org 
• Quintessence Labs: www.quintessencelabs.com

Catch up previous episodes of ‘OzCyber Unlocked’ during the Christmas break:

• Under siege: Are we ready for a cyber attack on Australia’s hospital system?: https://bit.ly/3m5wv0E
• The state of Australian cyber – 2021 observations from retired MAJGEN Dr Marcus Thompson: https://bit.ly/3dOsU2y
• Intentional or unintentional? The impact of insider threats: https://bit.ly/3ueW4ix
• The Essential Eight – keeping your digital infrastructure secure: https://bit.ly/3lW2LCu
• Cyber threat intelligence – a deep dive into why it matters: https://bit.ly/2ZEd4nr
• 'Cyber shift’ – how do we improve diversity & workplace culture to enact real change?: https://bit.ly/3m22bDh
• Pathways into cyber security – how to plan, upskill and maximise career opportunities: https://bit.ly/2XTrJtJ