As the GDPR deadline approaches, The IP EXPO Manchester has opened with a stark reminder for organisations to be cyber smart from Robert Hannigan, former Director of GCHQ, the UK government’s largest intelligence and cyber agency.
Hannigan took to the stage in front of a packed crowd, sharing both his views on current cyber challenges and valuable insights into the government’s strategy and ambition to make the UK the safest place to live and do business online.
With GDPR looming, cyber security prompted intense discussion amongst attendees. Seminar sessions from Bennett Arron, comedian and identity theft speaker, Rik Ferguson of Trend Micro and Greg Iddon of Sophos all provided thought provoking and educational content on the topic.
Commenting on the opening of IP EXPO Manchester 2018, Bradley Maule-ffinch, Director of Strategy for IP EXPO Event Series, said: “It’s our fourth year of bringing the IP EXPO series to Manchester and once again we have seen an incredible turn out. The recent news that GCHQ is to set up base in Manchester, reiterates that security is front of mind across the nation. Speakers across the programme offered invaluable advice on how we can look to increase our personal and business cyber security, something that should be high on our agendas given the ever-increasing risks we now face online.”
Additional highlights from Day One at IP EXPO Manchester, which encompasses technology across six main themes – Cloud & IoT, Cyber Security, Networks & Infrastructure, Data & Analytics, DevOps and AI – included:
- Ian Massingham of AWS, walked attendees through the process for building, training and deploying customised machine learning models with Amazon SageMaker.
- Adam Maskatiya of Kaspersky Lab discussed why and how cyber-threats could kill your business transformation.
- Leo Leung of Oracle Cloud explored a modern approach to cloud computing, including what makes Oracle Cloud Infrastructure different in how it is architected.
- A hot debate on AI, which brought together Harvey Lewis of Ernst & Young LLP, Katie Gibbs of Heron, John Shaw of Sophos, Chris Testa- O’Neill of Microsoft and Danielle Haugedal-Wilson of Co-op Group.
Day Two of IP EXPO Manchester kicks off with a keynote talk from Dr Hannah Fry, Lecturer and one of the UK’s best-known mathematicians at 10.00am. With a raft of additional speakers following Hannah, across the whole spectrum of technology topics, attendees will be able to walk away with both a look at the future of technology along with a holistic view of how they can develop their IT capabilities and better support organisational requirements.
