South Australian Premier Steven Marshall will officially open the Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre at the Lot 14 innovation precinct later this month as the state hones its focus on opportunities for the state in global cyber markets.
The centre would ultimately host Australia’s largest range of commercial activity in the cybersecurity sector, and would include the nation’s largest training cyber training academy, and a sophisticated ‘Cyber Test Range’ for road-testing different technology and methodologies across different network configurations.
“We think cyber is a massive opportunity for South Australia and for our nation,” Mr Marshall told InnovationAus. “When I first became premier of South Australia, I received a report that looked at the cyber threat – the cyber risk – to our state government.”
“And whilst [that report] was reasonably frightening, it also indicated to me that cyber represented a huge opportunity for our state,” he said. A lot of governments look at cyber and only see the threat. In South Australia we are looking at it as an opportunity as well,” he said.
The Premier has brought together an impressive national board of directors that leverages both cyber sector expertise and commercial defence experience.
The Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre (A3C) board includes AustCyber chief executive Michelle Price; CyberCX chief strategy officer and former National Cyber Security Advisor Alastair MacGibbon; Australian Submarine Corporate director Geoff Rohrsheim; Silentium Defence chairman Kim Scott; Illumina’s Asia Pacific government affairs director Libby Day; and Adam Reid, the chief executive at South Australia’s Department of Innovation and Skills.
“This is a really strong, national board, and our goal is that it attracts companies and organisations that want to focus on products for the massive global cyber market,” Mr Marshall said.
The South Australian Government has spent time building relationships with cyber centres in Maryland in the United States, Brittany in France, and with the National Cyber Security Centre in London.
The A3C centre is based within the Lot 14 innovation precinct in central Adelaide, which also houses the Australian Space Agency, and SmartSat CRC, an MIT Living Lab, the Australian Institute of Machine Learning, and a branch of the Stone & Chalk accelerator and coworking space.
“It’s quite unique in Australia in that the precinct is right in the centre of the city. And it has varied areas of focus, whether its defence, space, cyber, machine learning, blockchain, AgTech or the creative industries,” Mr Marshall said.
“You’ve got a lot of very smart people in a small area, all bouncing ideas around. And we have already seen some fantastic collaborations between companies on that site.”
The premier has increased the South Australia’s marketing efforts to attract domestic and international companies to the state in the wake of the coronavirus lockdowns.
Mr Marshall cites Adelaide’s lower relative costs compared to other mainland capitals, its great working environment and excellent liveability, as well as its good skills base and low-churn rates and proximity to world class universities as reasons to explore opportunities in a South Australia.
Do you know more? Contact James Riley via Email.