Tag Archives: Cyber Community

Founders, Stewardship, Stepping Back, and Moving Forward

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Writing about Charles Jordan MBE, preparing for his funeral, and just after taking stock of everything we have built around the West Midlands Cyber Hub, made me think about founders and stewardship. The Hub and Cluster are entering a new phase. Andrew Horkan will take the lead, and I am going to concentrate more of my time on Cyber Tzar, Psyber Inc. and WARP Labs, and the exciting future that awaits.

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West Midlands Cyber Hub Diaries: I Went Quiet. The Work Didn’t.

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Success, autistic burnout, the West Midlands Cyber Hub, and what comes next. I have been unusually quiet online while the Hub has expanded, secured its long-term home and begun evolving into the West Midlands Cyber Cluster. More importantly, we are discovering that the community around it represents a substantial indigenous cyber economy hiding in plain sight: established, revenue-generating SMEs with far more collective commercial weight than the region has historically recognised.

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Pre-Launch Reflections: The West Midlands Cyber Hub

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The pre-launch of the West Midlands Cyber Hub at Enterprise Wharf brought together over 100 leaders from across the region’s cyber ecosystem, CISOs, CTOs, startups, universities, government, community partners, students, practitioners, and members of the interested public. What began as a vision to give the West Midlands a proper home for cyber has now become real, supported by DSIT, Innovate UK, Aston University, West Midlands Cyber Resilience Centre, Midlands Cyber, TechWM and the Innovation Alliance for the West Midlands.

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West Midlands Cyber Hub Diaries: Day One (Or Perhaps Day Sixty)

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The West Midlands Cyber Hub marks a long-held ambition to give the region a central home for cyber. Building on the rebooted West Midlands Cyber Working Group (WM CWG), the Hub is designed to strengthen community coherence, increase investment, and connect students, SMEs, enterprises, and universities in a neutral space. Supported by DSIT, Innovate UK, Aston University, TechWM, and the Innovation Alliance for the West Midlands, the Hub will open its first phase at Enterprise Wharf in Birmingham, forming the core of a hub-and-spoke model across the region. The project team, led by Sevgi Aksoy and I (Wayne Horkan), with Rebecca Robinson as PM, is preparing for a pre-launch event on 30th September 2025.

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Professionalising Cyber: Reflections from Conway Hall

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A first-hand reflection on the UK Cyber Security Council’s recent “The Journey to Professionalisation” event at Conway Hall, exploring the ongoing professionalisation of the cyber security sector. Highlights include the expansion of recognised specialisms, the development of the UK Cyber Skills Framework, and discussions on AI, early-career challenges, and the need for a more inclusive, realistic skills framework to support a growing cyber economy.

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