NEWS
Cybersec: The Cluster that Brought Together the Region’s Top Cybersecurity Companies and Organizations
- Major global cybersecurity multinationals have joined forces to found Cybersec Cluster together with the country’s key academic, public sector, and productive sector stakeholders.
- The project’s goal is to serve as a global model in matters of cybersecurity.
San Jose, Costa Rica. Friday, May 20, 2022. Created to serve as a domestic and global model for cybersecurity, the Cybersec Cluster has brought together major global cybersecurity multinationals.
As another step towards improving cybersecurity, on May 12 the country and region’s first cybersecurity cluster was inaugurated in the auditorium of the Universidad Latina de Costa Rica.
The event marks the culmination of a process that started in 2019, when the private sector issued a call to the public sector and academia to create the first cybersecurity cluster within the framework of the national cluster strategy launched by PROCOMER.
A cluster is an economic model of productive transformation aimed at increasing competitive advantage through innovation management. The goal of Cybersec Cluster is to become a domestic and global cybersecurity model to position Costa Rica as the cybersecurity capital of Latin America.
With a robust group of founding members representing the most renowned international and domestic cybersecurity companies, academia, and business chambers, the cluster was created as a nonprofit association strategically focused on developing and strengthening the cybersecurity ecosystem of the industry and market and on building a world-class workforce.
Creation of the cluster included the appointing of IBM representative Denise Tabush as chair of the board of directors charged with leading its actions.
“In Costa Rica IBM has one of the largest cybersecurity centers in the world. Being part of the cluster is a source of pride for the company, since it reinforces the importance of encouraging cybersecurity and gives us an opportunity to work together with other organizations for the country’s development and benefit,” explained Tabush.
Cluster manager Carolina Taborda noted, “Cybersec Cluster is based on the building of trust and cooperation so that the extended triple helix sectors (private sector, public sector, academia, capital, and civil society) can coordinate together on creating the technical and educational opportunities that cybersecurity represents for Costa Rica and the region.”
The new MICITT and MEIC authorities attended and participated with a message of hope that the collaborative work with these productive transformation models will continue. Also in attendance were the new heads of the chambers of industries and information and communication technologies, the directors of CINDE and PROCOMER, and the vice minister of foreign trade.
“We are proud to see the sectors coordinating to make Costa Rica increasingly more competitive with the best world-class talent. Cybersecurity is one of the five megatrends among service companies in our country with more than 3,300 people employed in the last year, according to CINDE studies. The creation of this cluster is a tremendous country opportunity given that the global market - valued at more than $217 billion - will grow at a pace of 9.7% per year while KPMG data has shown that 82% of multinational service companies in Costa Rica see cybersecurity as one of their investment priorities,” concluded CINDE managing director Jorge Sequeira.
For information on how to connect with the cluster and its initiatives, write to info@cybersec.cr.
