As October is Cybersecurity Awareness month, it seems more relevant than ever to highlight the role that cybersecurity can play in a company’s ability to retain the startup spirit, expand into new opportunities, and continue their digital transformation. This is why we say “Security gives us freedom”. Staying “cyber smart” goes beyond following a list of simple tips, however. As we say at onShore, security is a process, not a product. It is a challenge that must be answered every day. Our chances are better, our energies better spent, our initiatives are more likely to succeed when we work together. As COVID-19 sends our workers and businesses home and geography seemingly becomes erased, it is more important now than ever to remember that cybersecurity starts locally.
It is for this reason that we are excited to work with P33 Chicago, a group focused on digital transformation in Chicago. Its mission is reflected in its name: the “P” standing for people, purpose, plan, and progress. The “33” refers to the historic World’s Fair of 1933, a time when Chicago shined bright on the world stage, presenting the cutting edge, our White City a harbinger of an optimistic future. It references, too, this future, with 2033, the centennial of the World’s Fair, as an upcoming milestone and a date by which to have returned this startup spirit to Chicago. Though our “Second City” is actually the third largest in the US, it does not rank as a top-tier town for tech. Our city, once a destination hub for the tech-focused in the midwest, now retains only slightly more than half of the software engineers that study within the city itself at one of Chicago’s handful of top global universities.
With an established university pipeline, and strong venture capital scene, there is great potential to grow Chicago’s corporate tech investment and establish Chicago as a champion of digital transformation. We’re very excited to be working with P33 on an upcoming event for Fintech Spark, a new initiative to introduce financial companies to transformational ideas and practices in technology.
onShore Security will be presenting its cybersecurity solution to attendees. The use of digital data, a practice that has now permeated nearly every part of the business world, has enabled amazing opportunities, but this also carries a responsibility to protect the business and its customers from cyberattack and compliance violation. We’ll be speaking from our experience about detection, response, and how the process of security (powered by human intelligence and machine learning) scales and grows along with business needs and regulatory requirements.