Canada’s opportunity is to understand how training and workforce needs can be made more visible and useful across the system, including through trusted structures like shared frameworks and accreditation.  

This workshop explores how stronger coordination and public-sector–anchored approaches along with pilot-scale coordination models can clarify and test practical solutions, helping turn strong programs into trusted support for Canada’s economic and national security priorities.  

Canada’s opportunity is to understand how cybersecurity research value and real-world demand can be made more visible and actionable across the system.   

This workshop explores how stronger coordination, public-sector anchored approaches, and pilot-scale models can accelerate the translation of research into adopting practical activities that facilitates innovation that support Canada’s economic and national security priorities.  

Canada must understand which AI and cybersecurity research areas, capabilities, and infrastructure are most critical to national resilience, and where this capacity exists across the system.   

This workshop explores how to identify priority research directions, gaps in testing, evaluation, and data, and map expertise helping guide where the NCC should explore and support research that advancesCanada’s economic and national security priorities.  

Canada’s needs to understand which cybersecurity research areas, capabilities, and pathways are most critical to supporting public safety and policing, and where this capacity exists across the system.   
  
This workshop explores how to identify priority research directions, identify barriers to operational adoption such as validation and procurement, and map enabling conditions. This will guide what research and implementation efforts could best advance Canada’s public safety, economic, and national security priorities.  

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.  

Digital sovereignty has become an operational concern for governments and institutions relying on global infrastructure. This panel explores the gap between controlling data flows and mitigating true legal and technical exposure. When encryption or data localization is sufficient to prevent access through non-Canadian supply chains due to jurisdiction, surveillance, or legal compulsion. It asks what kinds of technical, legal, and policy responses are needed to meaningfully protect sovereignty in practice.

AI-powered influence operations are expanding the cognitive attack surface Canadians face—distorting perception, degrading trust, and eroding informed decision-making. This panel explores cognitive security as a cybersecurity issue, focusing on how digital platforms, algorithms, and adversarial actors shape what Canadians see and believe. Panelists will identify research and policy pathways to strengthen democratic resilience especially for youth.

As artificial intelligence becomes embedded in critical infrastructure, defence, and public services, securing AI systems demands both human capability and thoughtful national research priorities. This panel explores two key aspects: first, whether current cybersecurity training (rooted in traditional software practices) is sufficient for adversarial AI; second, whether Canada is treating AI security research as a national priority. Panelists will examine evolving threats, skill gaps, and the investments needed to ensure Canada can develop, test, and defend AI systems that underpin its future resilience.

As Canada modernizes its cyber and public safety capabilities, tensions between surveillance powers and democratic rights are becoming more urgent. This panel examines how advanced technologies (e.g. AI-enabled surveillance, zero-click exploits) are challenging traditional legal and ethical boundaries. Panelists will explore how Canadian research and regulation can shape innovation towards privacy-respecting, accountable solutions for next-generation security tools.

Canada ranks among the most expensive countries for data breaches, which escalates costs, and undermine public safety and national productivity. This panel explores how misaligned incentives and unclear roles between technical, legal, executive, and regulatory actors during a cyber incident delays response and magnify impact. Panelists will identify where research, training, and governance reform could reduce friction and improve coordination across Canada’s public and private sectors.

Canada’s evolving defence, AI, and procurement strategies have created a critical window to align CAF cyber investments with national innovation capacity. This panel explores how defence spending can accelerate dual-use research, build secure domestic infrastructure, and develop the talent pipelines needed for long-term cyber readiness. It asks how partnership models across academia, industry, and other innovation agencies can translate military needs into additional ecosystem capability.

Digital identity has become foundational to modern infrastructure, expanding from government-issued credentials to a dynamic, contested layer spanning healthcare, finance, social platforms, and AI systems that infer identity in real time. This panel explores how authentication, authorization, and trust are operationalized across fragmented ecosystems, where public and private incentives often diverge. As Canada develops digital ID and trust frameworks, the panel asks: what technical, policy, and socio-legal research is needed to ensure identity systems are secure, equitable, and resilient by design?

Space-based systems now underpin critical Canadian operations (e.g. Arctic patrols, secure international military communications) making them essential digital infrastructure with unique cybersecurity challenges. This panel explores how vulnerabilities in satellite signals, control software, and space-derived services intersect with risks on Earth, especially in military, public safety, and remote operations. Panelists will examine what securing these cyberphysical systems demands in terms of research, resilience, interoperability, and Canada’s future capability planning.