Laurea’s Paresh Rathod, expert speaker at the 7th NATO Conference on Cyber Security in the Maritime Domain

Recently, Laurea CyberSecPro project manager and innovation lead, Paresh Rathod was a one of speaker for the maritime cybersecurity solutions at the 7th NATO Conference on Cyber Security in the Maritime Domain in Crete, Greece. The conference brought together relevant stakeholders to discuss maritime cybersecurity vision, challenges, and solutions. CyberSecPro is a Digital Europe Innovation project that aims to provide cutting-edge cybersecurity practical education and training for workforce across Europe.

Prof. Christos Douligeris (University of Piraeus, Greece) and Paresh Rathod (Laurea UAS, Finland) presented the CyberSecPro (Digital Europe Innovation project) collaborative development work of a scholarly team consisting of Prof. Nineta Polemi, Theodoros Karvounidis, Prof. Christos Douligeris, and Paresh Rathod. Prof. Polemi and Dr. Karvounidis could not attend the NATO conference due to other cybersecurity professional commitments.

The conference organisers praised the CyberSecPro team's contribution, noting that it was remarkable and added real value to the discussions. The active participation of Prof. Christos Douligeris and Paresh Rathod as speakers made a significant difference to the success of the event.

Collaboration with the NATO Maritime Training Center provides insights and new ideas for the CyberSecPro project's targets and impact on the European cybersecurity community. NATO cybersecurity experts expressed interest in using the CyberSecPro approach of we live in an era of cooperation, collaboration, and partnership. The presentation ended with a call for NATO conference participants to "Let us cooperate, not compete, to consolidate cybersecurity for good." (Quote from Paresh Rathod, European Cybersecurity Expert, CyberSecPro Laurea Project Manager and Thematic Leader)

The digital transformation imposes the HEIs to enhance their role in preparing the new generation workforce and to upskill the existing one in meeting the challenging and ever-growing cybersecurity challenges (e.g., massive AI attacks). In the CyberSecPro project seventeen (17) higher education institutions and thirteen (13) security companies from sixteen (16) Member States propose the agile CyberSecPro professional cybersecurity practical and hands-on training program that will complement, support and advance the existing academic programs by linking innovation, research, industry, academia and SME support. CyberSecPro aims to bridge the gap between degrees, working-life and marketable cybersecurity skill sets necessary in the digitalization efforts and become the best practice for all cybersecurity training programs. The project is funded by the EU Digital Europe Program (Digital).

The project is coordinated by Goethe University (Germany) and the project duration is three years. Laurea University of Applied Sciences is one of the work package leaders with vital development contribution in foundation of the CyberSecPro project.

Learn more about the CyberSecPro project

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