TECHNOLOGY Cloud Computing
Paul Brady, Director of Information Security for Europe at innovation company Optum, which also has a strong presence in the region with 140 people working in cybersecurity at their site in Letterkenny, is one of the Chapter leads, and he tells me the creation of a Chapter specific to the North West was inevitable, given the number of tech expertise and development in the region. “After talking to other Cyber Ireland members, I spoke to the IDA and other companies about furthering relationships with the ITs in Sligo and Letterkenny, and I was overwhelmed by the response from people,” he says. “We were hiring for Optum in the region because we wanted to have people who were knowledgeable of the sector and because of those strong links with the courses run at Letterkenny and Sligo IT, which are very well-established.” Those links continue to grow, with North West tech companies other than CloudRanger/Druva also actively hiring from the IT talent pools and fostering an interest and experience in data and cloud-driven technology in schools. “We have had a lot of good feedback and engagement already,” Paul tells me. “This year in our North West Chapter we won’t focus so much on webinars because after the last year, people are kind of sick of them,” he jokes, “but we are looking at setting up a summer camp for Transition Year students on cyber security, showing them how there is a viable career in it, while we also have a mentorship programme (for those interested in entering the tech, cloud and data management industry) that we are very excited about, and we will be involved in and represented at events such as the IT Sligo Engineering and Technology Expo among other things. It’s all about small steps this year, and then bigger things when we return to normality. “We can encourage people to work in the North West and show them that we have the opportunities there,” he adds. “We can encourage reskilling, and foster graduates from the ITs, collaborating and making sure
“As we continue to build the next generation of data protection in the cloud, Druva is excited to expand our highly-skilled team right there in the North West”
we have the opportunity to do so, and we can build relationships with companies in the region in healthcare, pharma and medical devices, who are now starting to hire people for industrial security, another aspect of cybersecurity. It’s all about building a tech and cyber security community in the region. “There are a lot of good things happening in the North West at the moment with companies and groups in Sligo and Letterkenny, but the North West Chapter aims to bring all of that together, to coordinate all of that good work across the region.” “The future is very bright for Ireland, and for us in the North West, especially if we can continue to focus on education and attracting more top technology companies to the border regions,” David Gildea adds. “Ireland has some fantastic opportunities for growth with large enterprises in these regions. If we can continue to grow the technical workforce, we will attract more talent, which will benefit everyone.” Indeed, with a continuous supply of tech talent emerging from the region’s ITs, and an increasing number of international and homegrown companies viewing the region as an excellent place to do business, the future for data-driven and cloud service providers in the North West looks positively bright. IDAIRELAND.COM
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