National Science Foundation and Department of Homeland Security organized a series of joint workshops on Cybersecurity and Privacy with the Brazilian Ministry of Innovation, Science and Technology. The first workshop was held December 3rd thru 4th in Brasilia, Brazil. There were approximately twenty US researchers, primarily from academia, and an equal number of Brazilian researchers from a variety of Brazilian universities and industry.
The workshop included keynote addresses from both the US and Brazilian senior government organizers, panel presentations on current research topics, breakout sessions and rapid-fire cross-collaborations consisting of one-on-one short interchanges with other attendees. The governments announced plans for joint solicitations for collaborative R&D between the two countries. We should expect to see these solicitations in the spring of 2016.
A second workshop will be held in Orlando, Florida in April 2016. The second workshop will include many of the participants from the first as well as some new participants, and will provide an opportunity for collaborators to develop plans to respond to the upcoming solicitations.
I was among the following participants in the breakout session on the Science of Cybersecurity.
• Mário S. Alvim (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil)
• Terry Benzel (University of Southern California, USA)
• Anne Cox (Department of Homeland Security, USA)
• Jorge Fernandes (University of Brasília, Brazil)
• Daniel R. Figueiredo (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
• Stephanie Forrest (University of New Mexico, USA)
• Daniel Ragsdale (Texas A&M University, USA)
My contribution to the discussion in the session was the need and importance for science-based cybersecurity experimentation. We are in the process of making final edits to the breakout report that will be included in the forthcoming workshop report.
In addition to the technical meetings, we were treated to a fabulous dinner on a lake one night and several of us extended our stay in order to better immerse ourselves in the culture and country. All in all this was an excellent trip and I look forward to continued collaborations.
