Cyber collaboration centre A3C officially opens

The Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre (A3C) officially opened its doors this week, bringing together education, industry and business teams to help build national cyber capabilities.

Led by former WA Police CISO Hai Tran, the $10 million centre aims to help cement South Australia’s position as a national leader in cyber, according to Premier Steven Marshall.

“The Marshall government has made a commitment to make South Australia the nation’s leader in cybersecurity — the A3C is the cornerstone of this vision,” Premier Marshall said.

“The A3C will support the development of a cyber workforce for global businesses that can establish cyber teams in South Australia to take advantage of our world-class research, education, market reach and lower cost environment.”

The Premier also said the centre would help businesses continue to adjust to ever-challenging IT governance conditions during COVID-19 and beyond.

“Cybersecurity and resilience are increasingly becoming front of mind for the business community and COVID-19 has created further awareness due to working-offsite arrangements, which are likely to continue in unprecedented numbers,” he said.

“As the recent Australia-wide cyber attacks show, threats to businesses, governments and essential systems are not theoretical — they are here, they are already happening, and we must ensure we have the right people, skills and infrastructure to head them off.

“The A3C is set up as a place where businesses can come to get advice and build their skills and workforce capability.”

Minister for Innovation and Skills David Pisoni said the A3C will engage internationally to bridge capability gaps, with a focus on collaboration, innovation, entrepreneurship and enterprise.

This, he argued, would be necessary with 5000–7500 new ICT jobs needed throughout the state over the next five years, and up to 1500 requiring cybersecurity training.

“Cybersecurity is a high-demand industry,” said Minister Pisoni.

“Critical to this is upskilling and training people through the Cyber Training Academy, which will bring in world-class training capability from around Australia and around the globe.”

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