CyberASAP announces next competition round and Demo Day 2024

Funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) and delivered by Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, the programme, currently in its 7^th year, brings the government, cyber security academics and the business and investment communities together to accelerate the growth of the sector.

The programme supports the commercialisation of academic research, through multiple routes including spin-out, licensing, project finance and open source. The year 1-6 alumni have leveraged £23 million worth of post programme funding and over 26 spin-outs have been formed of which 3 have been acquired.

For year 8 CyberASAP is building on a successful pilot to include a thematic strand alongside the existing open call and is recruiting projects focussing on: AI model security, software supply chain security, and Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) security or OT (Operation Technology) security in partnership with Plexal.

The launch of the competition coincides with the date announcement of the CyberASAP annual flagship event – Demo Day 2024 which will be held on Thursday, 14 March in London showcasing the programme’s achievements and commercial potential of year 7 projects being developed by the current cohort of academic teams.

This is also a unique opportunity for investors and industrialists to get early insights into the emerging technology and trends in the sector and to engage with innovators set to reshape the cyber security landscape.

The current CyberASAP cohort consists of 13 academic projects from:

1. University of Essex – DAISOR: Data/AI Secure-by-Design Orchestration Platform
2. University of Essex – CyberSecurityAId: A dynamic, AI-powered self-assessment cybersecurity tool for small businesses
3. University of Essex – FORENSIC: Fast and Autonomous Platform Anomalies detections in Cyber Physical Systems
4. University of Oxford – BlockHawk: Monitoring Blockchains to detect attacks and misbehaviours
5. University of Oxford – Vouchsec: Conversational Cyber Security Platform for the AI Era
6. University of Oxford – CyberHeels by LITERALLY NEED – Improving digital-physical wellbeing with IoT enabled smart shoes.
7. Middlesex University – AI-bility 4ds : AI Tool Empowering Cyber Security Training for Neurodiverse People
8. Edinburgh Napier University – TrueDeploy: Mitigating Open-Source Software Risk for SMEs
9. Kingston University – SirenPod – AI Enhanced Honeypot for Cybersecurity on IoT devices
10. University of Strathclyde – ECG.ai: Powering the healthy heartbeat of AI – lifecycle security for AI models, reducing risk and enabling compliance
11. University of Sheffield – ATM: Automated Threat Modelling for Enterprise AI-enabled Assets
12. De Montfort University – TwinSecure: Securing Critical National Infrastructure – A Digital Twin-Powered Decision Support System
13. The University of West London – IoT Armor: Empower IoT’s future with education on seamless secure-by-default integration

Recruitment for the CyberASAP Year 8 Open and Thematic strands will open in early February through a single Innovate UK competition with the programme commencing in April. 

Join us for the competition online briefing event on Tuesday, 6 February at 1pm.