On transforming Automotive Cybersecurity: Bridging gaps, Opportunities and Diversity
Presented by: Ikjot Saini, Academic Director ASRG And Assistant Professor Academic Network
10:05 AM - 10:20 AMThu
With the increasing demand for connectivity and the rapidly evolving Autotech sector, cybersecurity concerns have risen exponentially. The global automotive cybersecurity job markets are in a talent crunch and need reskilling, upskilling, and cross-disciplinary competencies to manage the risks in this emerging cyberspace. SHIELD Automotive Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence at the University of Windsor is dedicated to the development of industry-ready solutions to meet the rapidly changing technology and threats. SHIELD also focuses on training to lower the barrier to entry and create an industry-ready talent pipeline. To enable knowledge transfer and collaborations among research labs at the academic institutions globally, ASRG is building an academic network for researchers and graduate students to provide the support network of auto security scholars. One of the important aspects which are often overlooked is diversity at the workplace. In this emerging field, where automotive and cybersecurity have records of significantly low representation of women, diversity is a significant challenge. In 2021, women hold 25% of the cybersecurity jobs globally (source), which has doubled in a decade. While in automotive, the percentage has increased only by 1% from 2014 to 2018 (from 7 to 8), with no women on the executive teams of over half of the top 20 companies. The statistics indicate the grim state of the diversity in automotive cybersecurity in the future. This will only be changed by actively and collectively working on diversity and inclusion.