On March 30th, the Cyber Security Coalition held its General Assembly meeting in a landmark Belgian institute KBR, Royal Library of Belgium.
Our Chair, Jan De Blauwe, updated the participating members on the current state of our association and the priorities for the current year and beyond. Herewith are the most important takeaways:
👉 The Coalition continues to grow both in members and activities. Our association boasts 158 members compared to 56 in 2016. 2022 marked the return to in-person events. 759 people participated in our experience-sharing events, including the Cyber Security Awareness & Culture Manager training organized for the fourth time last year.
👉 A lot of people are engaged in our 11 focus groups. Some have grown so big that sub-groups have been created to ensure smooth operation. Twenty hospitals have joined the healthcare focus group formed last year. The newly created Application Security Focus Group will strengthen our partnership with SecAppDev.org. The Regulations & Standardizations Focus Group considers the implementation issues of the numerous European regulations.
👉 This year, too, we will continue our various awareness actions, such as the national campaign in partnership with the Centre for Cybersecurity Belgium. Last year, we extended our target audience to include school students through the launch of the EDUbox cybersecurity.
👉 We support various initiatives that aim at reducing the cyber skills gap, such as the Women4Cyber Belgium chapter, Cyber Security Challenge Belgium and other Capture-the-Flag competitions organized by students’ associations. We will continue to spotlight the cybersecurity profession through our award programme.
👉 Our association is in excellent financial condition thanks to the continued support of the private sector members. Last year, we also benefited again from a federal subsidy.
👉The General Assembly appointed Mrs. Saskia Van Uffelen, Director Digital & Manager BeTheChange team Agoria, as new director of the association for a period of three years. Mrs. Van Uffelen succeeds Mr. Bart Steukers, CEO of Agoria, whose mandate expired. The President thanked Mr. Steukers for the tremendous impetus he had given to the functioning of the Board.
