Last month, CISO Council and Digital Alliance, organised the inaugural Middle East Security Awards and Conference (MESA).
Held on 24th and 25th May at The Address, Dubai Marina it featured a two-day conference with an awards gala held on the evening of the first day. Over 20 CISOs from leading organisations across Middle East and 10 international experts took part as speakers and panellist at the event. It was attended by 200+ senior delegates from various organisations across the region.
MESA 2016 was aimed exclusively aimed at chief information security officers (CISO) and security executives to foster collaboration and encourage thought leadership and information sharing in the IT security community.
Ahmed Baig, Founder and CEO, CISO Council, said, “MESA was conceived to address the growing needs and cybersecurity challenges in the Middle East. By bringing the security leadership and industry players together to deliberate and discuss various industry challenges and find ways to deal with it. This was possible in partnership with CISO Council that already connects 1000+ CISOs and security fraternity globally on its platform.
Among the topics highlighted during the MESA conference include ‘Need for information sharing and collaboration for enhancing cybersecurity’; ‘Measuring effectiveness of information security’; ‘Redefining the role of CISO in the modern enterprise’; ‘Tips to improve the cybersecurity literacy of executive management and board members’; and Building the cybersecurity workforce to defend nations.’
As for the awards programme, Baig highlighted that the idea of establishing this awards programme is to recognise the work and contribution of the members of the cybersecurity community here in the region. “A lot of times, the only instance when cybersecurity professionals get the attention is when something goes wrong within their organisations,” he said. “The growing complexities of the IT security landscape are demanding more from CISO professionals and we believe that it’s the right time that they get the recognition they deserve. In this first edition of MESA, we received a phenomenal response and participation from key regional and global industry players such as (ISC)2, ISACA, Polcyb, Online Trust Alliance and many others. “
MESA honoured 100 security leaders in four categories namely Government security leader, Information security Leader, Woman security leader, and Rising stars in security and risk. The gala evening also saw three (ISC)2 awards given away, which was decided based on community votes that included the following categories (ISC)2 – Government security leader, Information security leader and Woman security leader.
Wesley Simpson, COO, (ISC)2, said, “An aspect that we really liked about MESA is that it is an event built by the industry and for the industry. From (ISC)2s perspective, it reflects our vision of fostering a safe and secure cyber-world. It is about growing the engagement and fostering collaboration among the CISO community. It served as a great platform for information security leaders to learn and grow more as professionals.”
MESA in partnership with CISO Council aims to connect the security community on a single platform to be able to collaborate, contribute and learn.
