Digital leaders join forces to boost cyber education

The Australian Information Security Association has announced a formal collaboration with the Australian Computing Academy (ACA) at the University of Sydney to help make Australia a safer place to live, innovate and do business.

AISA and ACA are combining resources and efforts to improve cyber safety, skills and education for students, teachers and professionals, association chair Damien Manuel said.

“From a young age, education is such a crucial component of being cyber safe and secure, so AISA is delighted to be working with the Academy, which is a respected and accomplished leader in the field,” Mr Manuel said.

Launched in 2017, the ACA provides primary and secondary educators with the resources and skills required to implement the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies effectively.

"One of the areas we are pleased about is co-operating with ACA to help more teachers and schools in building a pathway for the next generation of the cyber workforce,” Mr Manuel said.

With the development of the Schools Cyber Security Challenges, the ACA aims to close the gap in cyber security awareness and skills among school students and teachers. Academic Director of ACA, Associate Professor James Curran, said, “Students and teachers need to be equipped with the skills to protect themselves online.

"We know that cyber security expertise will be even more important in the future workforce and we’re thrilled to partner with AISA to prepare our Australian students for their future digital lives.”

AISA stages the biggest event on the nation’s security calendar, the annual Australian Cyber Conference, also known as Cybercon, which this year (October 8-9) was sold out in Melbourne with more than 3600 delegates from 24 countries.

Next year the conference is expanding to three full days of content and is designed for 6000 delegates to participate, share and network.

Mr Manuel said: “Associate Professor James Curran and Bruce Fuda from ACA spoke at this year’s Cybercon and from next year we are excited about the Academy having an expanded involvement with conference content at both a student and teacher level.

“Educators are a pivotal part of the cyber-security landscape and access to AISA’s conference and national network will help ACA and teachers with their important work.”