Announcement: Global EPIC Soft Landing Programme

Worldwide Support programme Allows Cybersecurity Companies and Entrepreneurs to Explore New Markets

Today, 9 global cybersecurity ecosystems in 5 different countries announced a 'Soft Landing Programme'. The Global EPIC 'Soft Landing Programme' will offer companies and entrepreneurs a unique opportunity to ‘soft land’ for a trial period in the market of one of the Global EPIC ecosystems. It will provide a low risk entry trial to companies and entrepreneurs entering a new international market, accessing the resources they need to more readily tap into commercial opportunities. The Soft Landing Programme, which will be launched in the coming weeks, is operated by the Global Ecosystem of Ecosystems Partnership in Innovation and Cybersecurity (Global EPIC), a worldwide collaboration between security ecosystems to co-create and adopt world-changing solutions to high-impact cybersecurity challenges, both current and emergent. Several other Global EPIC keystones will join the programme later this year.

Within the soft landing programme, the ecosystems will provide, without cost to the companies and entrepreneurs, connections to their partner network, matchmaking with potential business partners, a meeting space, guidance on recruiting talented employees and market circumstances, incubator facilities and guidance on immigration and legal issues, leading to the possibility of establishing a permanent presence in the foreign market.

David Crozier, President of Global EPIC and Head of Strategic Partnerships and Engagement at Queen’s University of Belfast’s Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) said: “One of the founding principles of Global EPIC is that of “glocalisation” as it pertains to tackling the worldwide challenge that cybersecurity presents whilst simultaneously realizing local economic impact for our partners. This soft landing programme represents the first tangible manifestation of coordinated delivery by our diverse partners around the globe which will offer real benefit to innovative cybersecurity companies by providing support to enter new markets.”

Richard Franken (Executive Director The Hague Security Delta Foundation): “Collaboration on a world-scale is crucial and sharing expertise is an important aspect of that. This is not only about talking but also about actually doing things together. By allowing innovative SMEs and start-ups to explore new markets and let them collaborate within a new cluster, this initiative will do just that.”

The participating ecosystems in the soft landing programme are: bwtech@UMBC (Baltimore, U.S.A.), Carelton GCR (Ottawa, Canada), Centre for Secure Information Technologies - CSIT (Belfast, U.K.), Cyber Wales (Cardiff, U.K), Hague Security Delta (The Hague, Netherlands), ITRI (Taipei, Taiwan), Kosciuszko Institute (Krakow, Poland), City of Surrey (Surrey, Canada), UNB (Fredericton, Canada).