February 21, 2017
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Abertay University hosted a cybersecurity expert from GCHQ at its fourth annual Walter McNicoll Defence Lecture.
The lecture is staged by each of the universities within Tayforth Military Education Committee (MEC) – Abertay, Dundee, Stirling and St Andrews.
This year it was titled Cyber – A Complex World and topics covered included cybersecurity, encryption, intelligence and legal parameters.
Leaders from both military and civilian roles provided an insight into their experiences in defence and an expert from GCHQ talked about cybersecurity.
Attendees also included academics and students from the four universities, members of Tayforth Universities Officers Training Corps under Al Jarvis, and East of Scotland Universities Air Squadron (ESUAS) under Jonny Finbow and Paul Cunningham.
Tayforth MEC Convener Eddie Simpson said: “The GCHQ expert’s lecture was interesting, informative and exciting, providing the audience of nearly 300 with an insight into the complexity of the intelligence services in their role of defence.
“The oversight of numerous career options, including Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects, led to 23 follow-up inquiries after the lecture.”
Walter McNicoll was a former convener of the MEC and commenced an annual defence lecture for the Tayforth area units in the early 1980s.
In 2013 the annual defence lecture was named after Mr McNicoll as a mark of respect for his contribution to the MEC and promoting defence.
