GSC Blog: Government / Industry News
The Economy Hits Venture Capital: Latest trends show no growth
July 28 2008 | 0 comment(s)
The National Venture Capital Association has put out some interested statistics about the state of play in venture capital in the US. Interestingly, it shows a complex picture. For Q2 2008 the amount invested when compared to Q1 ($7.5B into...
Imperial College London sets up new "Institute for Security Science & Technology"
July 25 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Two announcements in the last weeks manifested Imperial College London's place on the map for security and defence research in the UK:First, Sir Roy Anderson, the current Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Ministry of Defence was selected as new...
Mr. Chertoff, Tear Down That Wall! - more innovative technologies needed for US borders
June 17 2008 | 0 comment(s)
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to put some 700 miles of fencing along the border between the United States and Mexico by the end of George Bush's term, according to an article by the Economist last week:...
Germany About to Enact Tougher Surveillance Tools for Police
June 6 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Germany's government decided on a new law that would give police more rights to conduct online searches, video surveillance of homes and phone monitoring. Of course, the Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble is a big supporter of this draft law that...
MOD's Outreach and Support Component Kicks Off
May 30 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Yesterday, your faithful correspondents visited the kickoff meeting for the UK's new Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) outreach effort. As reported before on our blog the CDE is a new creation stood up to not only increase the supply base...
UK's QinetiQ is eyeing acquisitions in US defence market
May 28 2008 | 0 comment(s)
The US market for homeland security technologies never seems out of favour. QinetiQ, a spinout of the UK government and now a defence contractor funded in part by Carlyle Group, said today "it was eyeing more acquisitions in the US...
Straight from the Under Secretary's Mouth: $$$ for security innovation
May 21 2008 | 0 comment(s)
DHS Under Secretary for S&T, Jay Cohen, spoke on the hill about how his directorate gives out money. The main goal is to invest in science and technology that protects against catastrophic events -- making the Nation safer. The S&T...
Carlyle Back on Form: $2.5 billion defense private equity deal
May 20 2008 | 2 comment(s)
The Carlyle Group is going back to its roots by buying into the US Government portion of the splitting Booz Allen Hamilton for $2.54 billion. According to the Washington Post, Carlyle - with about $81 billion in assets and recently...
GSC Guides UK's New Enterprise Framework
May 14 2008 | 0 comment(s)
On 12 March 2008 the UK Government launched a new Enterprise Strategy:"The Strategy's central vision is to make the UK the most enterprising economy in the world and the best place to start and grow a business. The strategy...
How to Contract with the Pentagon the Wrong Way
May 1 2008 | 0 comment(s)
According to DefenseTech.org, there is still too much fat built into the defense procurement system. It appears that the pentagon is still paying more for products than they should. The Washington Post also put a spotlight on the GAO report...
Silent Cyber Security Initiative: the new "Manhattan Project"?
April 29 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Evidently the US Government is responding to the dramatic increase in cyber attacks against its assets in the last fiscal year. Depending on who you talk to the project is massive and calls for a dramatic reduction in points of...
Competition Dying in Defence Industry?
April 28 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Today Messrs Zakheim and Kadish - now senior executives at Booz Allen Hamilton though you might remember them as former US Defense and Missile Defense Agency heads, respectively - wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post about the...
Interpol Afraid of Olympics Attack - Surprise?
April 25 2008 | 1 comment(s)
"The head of Interpol said Friday that there is a "real possibility" that the Beijing Olympics will be targeted by terrorists or that anti-China groups could attack athletes." An article by MSNBC today states that Interpol is sending out...
People are the Biggest Unknown for Security Leaders
April 24 2008 | 1 comment(s)
Your correspondents spent the day yesterday at InfoSec Europe in London. We were looking for innovators and talking to the big integrators and corporates. One of the most interesting parts was a panel we sat in on. It was hosted...
Signs of Acceptance of a Globalized Defence Policy?
April 22 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Last June, the US signed a defense trade cooperation treaty with the UK and proceeded to sign a similar one with Australia in September. These treaties will allow the States to trade most defense technologies more quickly with the UK...
Controversy about UK's Holding Period for Terrorist Suspects - Why not use technology to enhance police capabilities?
April 14 2008 | 1 comment(s)
Jacqui Smith, the UK Home Secretary recently stated that the terrorist threat is growing and threatens to overwhelm the ability to police. These claims come as she is requesting that parliament approve a change to the period for which...
Some government backed innovation still misunderstood
April 9 2008 | 3 comment(s)
The UK MoD's recent move to open a "pilot centre for defence enterprise" has come under fire within the press. Evidently this new centre for incubation will be located in the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire. The proximity...
German Government Provides €29 Million in Funding for Explosive Research
April 6 2008 | 4 comment(s)
Germany's Federal Ministry of Research is providing €29 million in funding for 16 new collaborative projects for the detection of toxic and explosive substances. Altogether 73 partner entities are involved in these 16 projects, ranging from universities, scientific institutes,...
The DHS Inspector General Takes a Look at Airport Security
March 31 2008 | 1 comment(s)
The Office of the Inspector General at DHS recently released an unclassified summary of its undercover testing of airport screening, entitle an Audit of Airport Passenger and Checked Baggage Screening Performance. The OIG evidently sent in undercover agents to...
IARPA... Open for Business
March 5 2008 | 1 comment(s)
It has been called the spy-version of DARPA, but the Intelligence Advanced Research Activity Project or IARPA has opened on the campus of the University of Maryland, a partner university of the Global Security Challenge. IARPA (pronounced EYE-ar-pah) is...
German spy software gets a limited "Go"
March 3 2008 | 0 comment(s)
The Constitutional Supreme Court of Germany (Bundesverfassungsgericht) decided last week that the online investigation of a suspect's computer is permissible under the German constitution. Technology-wise, this would mean that the police can purposefully infect a suspect's computer with spy...
A Look at Defence Investing: Funding from Asia
February 25 2008 | 0 comment(s)
As it becomes more and more important to find and fund cutting edge technologies, we see countries turning to the venture capitalist route. Singapore is one of those countries and today we'll look at the fund established there and...
Cyber Defence - warfare of the future?
February 13 2008 | 0 comment(s)
With the heavy reliance of military, banks and even civilians on the Internet today, it's no surprise that criminal and terrorist activities are focusing their efforts on reeking havoc on the web these days. While it used to be...
The Balance of Military Spending in 2008
February 11 2008 | 0 comment(s)
According to IISS's annual assessment of world-wide military capabilities and expenditures, Military Balance 2008, as the world gets richer more money is spent on defence. During times of economic prosperity it is easy to justify growing defence spending as...
The EU Counter-Terrorism Strategy: how is technology involved?
February 6 2008 | 0 comment(s)
The Counter-Terrorism CoordinatorAfter the Madrid bombings in 2004, the EU appointed its first Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, Gijs de Vries, with the ambitious mission to facilitate exchange of information about border control, the security of travel documents and to promote police...
Science and Innovation as a part of the UK's Counterterrorism Strategy
February 4 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Maintaining a culture of innovation is difficult under the best of circumstances and within very big organizations and governments it is probably easier to through up your hands in frustration than to build in a system that properly finds, funds,...
EU View: "Technology alone cannot guarantee security, but security without technology is impossible"
January 30 2008 | 0 comment(s)
The GSC team just came back from a trip to Brussels where we met with leaders of the European Commission, The European Council and European Defence Agency. We will report on a few insights about how the EU has positioned...
About the UK's Counter-Terrorism Strategy
January 21 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Laws alone will not stop terrorism, but since we must be prepared to deal with terrorism, the United Kingdom devised a strategy in 2003 (known within Government as CONTEST) for countering terrorism. With it, the UK aims to reduce the...
An Innovative Way of Funding Startups: Israel's Chief Scientist
January 16 2008 | 0 comment(s)
The Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS) is part of the Ministry of Industry, Trade & Labor of the State of Israel. Several other ministries also have a Chief Scientist - such as the Ministry of Defence and the...
NaCTSO's November 2007 Statistics on Business CT Needs
January 14 2008 | 0 comment(s)
A Closer Look at the UK Home Office's NaCTSONaCTSO, which is funded and operated by the Association of Chief Police Officers, is the National Counter Terrorism Security Office. These brave souls are charged with partnering with the Security Service to...
Help for (security) SMEs by European Commission
January 9 2008 | 0 comment(s)
Financial Support for Security ResearchLast year the European Union recognized the need and importance of helping innovators in the security sector, by announcing that as part of its EU Framework 7, €1.4 billion would be set aside to fund...
TSWG of US Government sponsors $500K grant for winner of Global Security Challenge 2007
November 7 2007 | 0 comment(s)
Sponsor of the $500k grant: TSWG of US GovernmentThis year's grant for the winning entrepreneur of the Global Security Challenge is sponsored by the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), an interagency group of the U.S. Government, based in Washington DC.TSWG...
An article from the GSC Team about closing security gaps
October 18 2007 | 0 comment(s)
Germany: €123 million. EU: €1.4 billion. Closing Homeland Security Gaps: Priceless.by Janeen Chupa and Simon SchneiderIt started out simply enough - two graduate students with some free time and a desire to do good. What we ended up learning was...
Human Factor at Heart of European Commission's Security Research
October 9 2007 | 2 comment(s)
At the European Semi-Final of the GSC in Munich last week, we heard a fascinating speech from Christiane Bernard, from the Enterprise & Industry Directorate of the European Commission.Mrs Bernard stressed the importance of the human factor in the interaction...
Challenges remain for security/defense startups despite sector growth
September 27 2007 | 0 comment(s)
Recent research, conducted by the independent Venture Business Research (VBR) group in London shows growing investment activities in the security space. "Total investment in private security (IT and homeland) and defense companies has exceeded over $4.7 billion in 2007 YTD...
DHS' Research Philosophy
September 25 2007 | 0 comment(s)
Speaking before the audience at our GSC event in Washington on Sept 5th, Jay M. Cohen, Under Secretary for Science & Technology of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security commented about his philosophy in developing disruptive innovations in security technology:"To...
