The NCI Agency is pleased to announce the launch of a Small Business Mentoring Programme to harness the capacity of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from across the Alliance to contribute to NATO cyber defence.
Representatives from AT&T, BT, Leidos and Symantec, will meet with SMEs in one-on-one sessions during NCI Agency's annual flagship conference to be held from 7-9 June in Tallinn, Estonia. They will cover a range of topics, including product development, marketing, seed financing, technology scouting, best practices, and successful collaboration with partner companies and NATO.
"SMEs are innovative, agile and often specialise in niche technologies or processes that have the potential to be at the forefront of improvements in C4ISR, IT and cyber security, though we lack mechanisms to easily connect them to NCI Agency business opportunities," NCI Agency General Manager Koen Gijsbers said. "The Small Business Mentoring Programme aims to correct that imbalance."
He added, "This year's conference theme, 'Building Resilience through Secure C4ISR: NATO-Industry Collaboration in a New Era,' reflects the new reality that NATO and the private sector share risk and responsibility in cyber space, and it will be an opportune time to kick off this programme."
The Small Business Mentoring Programme is one of the initiatives implemented under the NCI Agency's SME Engagement Strategy. The strategy aims to maximize the potential of SMEs to deliver cost-effective capabilities in C4ISR, IT, and cyber security. Other programmes will be announced in the coming months.
To register for the Small Business Mentoring Programme, please use the NITEC APP.