The symposium was officially opened by Tommy Skjervold, the State Secretary at the Ministry of Transport and Communication. In his opening speech, the State Secretary stressed on the importance of securing communication infrastructures as well as the need for training future security experts and cryptologists.
As Olav Lysne (Director of Simula Metropolitan) welcommed the audience together with Nils Kalstad Svendsen(Head of CCIS), he said:"We have attracted around one hundred attendees from many different sectors of society, we intend to expose you to international experts that will share their insights and experience with you.We will show research that is currently going on in our Norwegian institutions, and last - but not least - we will give you an opportunity to meet with each other, get to know each other and exchange views and experiences."
The symposium featured a number of talks by industry, the public sector and academia,the army and security services. Rob Patridge of British Telecom (BT) elaborated on BT strategy for bolstering its cybersecurity workforce and for enhancing the neurodiversity within BT. Professor Diana Burley of George Washington University shed light on joined efforts by ACM, IEEE, AIS SIGSEC and IFIP to develop global cybersecurity curricular guidelines. Speakers from NVE, Thales Norway, NSM, FFI, the US Military Academy and NTNU presented their approaches for enhancing cybersecurity education. The symposium also featured a panel that debated the cybersecurity education needs in Norway and the Nordics.