Canada’s commitment to understanding which cybersecurity research areas, capabilities, and innovations are most critical to military and space operations, including identifying where capacity exists across the system.
This workshop explores how to identify priority research directions, barriers to operational adoption such as validation, classification, and procurement, and identifying where efforts can have dual-use impact. This guides what research and innovations will best advance Canada’s defense, space, and national security priorities.
National Cybersecurity Consortium 2026 Conference
BRIDGING SECTORS
SECURING CANADA
Workshop D: Cybersecurity Research Priorities for Military and Space Systems
Daniel Blanc is a retired senior military Officer with 38 years of service. He has served various positions in all three Battalions of his Regiment and has been deployed on global operations.
After serving as an Infantry Company Commander in 2004, he spent the next eight years in Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. He returned to Ottawa in the Strategic Joint Staff in 2015 and was appointed as the first Director of the newly established Directorate of National Security.
From 2021 until 2025, Colonel Blanc served as the Chief of Staff Operations of Cyber Command, responsible for domestic and international cyber operations of the Canadian Armed Forces. Daniel is now the CEO of Wisdom Global Security (WGS), a full-spectrum national security, defence, intelligence and cyber advisory firm.
He is an advisor at the Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst/Toronto Metropolitan University and the MindShield Institute, the Director-General and Ambassador-at-Large for the INCYBER Forum Canada, and a member of the Scientific and Ecosystem Advisory Committee at the National Cybersecurity Consortium and the Board of Directors of the Ontario Defence Association. He continues to work with domestic and international partners in cyber and national security initiatives to include NATO and other allies.
BGen (Ret’d) Mazzolin currently serves as the Space, Cyber, Defence, Security and Technology Strategist for the RHEA/Starion/Nexova companies, space and cyber system engineering companies that advise and deliver secure solutions to large enterprises, governments and institutions in Europe, Canada and other parts of the globe. He also serves as a Senior Fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
Notable appointments include serving as the Vice Director of Strategic Plans and Policy at United States Cyber Command at the National Security Agency, the Director General Information Management Operations responsible for all CAF and DND strategic network, signals intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber operations, Commander of the Canadian Forces Information Operations Group, and Director Land Command Systems Program Management responsible for the Canadian Army C4ISR engineering and acquisition programme during Afghanistan operations. He served in a variety of other Command and Staff roles and was one of the Canadian Forces leading experts in Communications and Information systems, Signals Intelligence, Network Operations and Electronic Warfare.