The London Office for Rapid Cybersecurity Advancement (LORCA) today launches the open call for its third cohort of cyber innovators. The new cohort will be tasked with solving some of the most pressing cybersecurity issues, as identified by industry leaders at LORCA’s Innovation Forum. Details of the application process and a full description of the challenges can be found at lorca.co.uk/apply. LORCA is one of two cyber innovation centres as part of the National Cyber Security Strategy objective to grow the UK’s cybersecurity sector and make sure the UK is the safest place to live and do business online.
Security by Design was selected as one of the most pressing challenges. As people use more technology in their everyday lives, there’s a growing need for products that are secure through their design to make it easier for people and businesses to remain safe online. LORCA is on the lookout for cybersecurity solutions that make it significantly cheaper or easier for products to be made secure. This includes ensuring products are secure as standard, rather than requiring an add-on solution, and at code level, as this remains a challenge across the sector.
The second challenge revolves around the concept of Basics. While the cybersecurity market is saturated with products and solutions, even in mature sectors like financial services – there remains a demand to get the basics right. LORCA’s Innovation Forum identified a need for best-in-class cyber patching and vulnerability management to deal with gaps in security. It’s also looking for cyber scaleups that can help enhance fundamental security controls with accurate and automated regulation and compliance metrics.
The third challenge is Beyond. In addition to the basics, this challenge area seeks to support innovative new approaches that go beyond current offerings and provide proactive, intelligence-led security solutions. This includes products that take a fresh look at technology advances to bring efficient and effective security solutions to market.
Cyber innovators accepted onto the LORCA programme will receive a year of bespoke, world-class support to engineer and iterate their solution and scale their businesses quickly – all within a dedicated space at LORCA’s base at innovation hub Plexal (which is based at Here East and has been developed by owner Delancey’s DV4 fund).
Participating companies will receive support from leading experts, including one-to-one commercial and technical support from Deloitte’s Cyber Risk Service team and world-class academic and engineering support will be provided by the Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at Queen’s University Belfast. Plexal’s innovation services team, together with external experts brought in as part of the programme’s curriculum, will help the businesses develop their business, iterate their products and scale in the UK or globally.
Crucially, members of cohort three will be given opportunities to engage with industry during the programme, which ensures that tomorrow’s cyber solutions are a good fit for what the market needs. For example, members of LORCA’s first and second cohorts have recently joined major insurance companies as part of a Needs Accelerator roundtable, which allows frank and open discussions around a specific industry’s biggest cyber challenges to take place.
Lydia Ragoonanan, director of LORCA, said: “Having already seen how many talented and inventive cybersecurity innovators there are in the country with our first two cohorts, we’re really looking forward to seeing what great ideas emerge now. As the UK’s dedicated space for industry-led cybersecurity innovation, it’s vital we’re always moving the conversation on to make sure we’re creating genuinely useful solutions to the problems impacting industry most.”
