Estonia, NATO and Australian Cyber Security opportunities

On Friday January 20, The Centre in collaboration with University of Adelaide, TalTech and supported by McGrathNicol, hosted its first event of 2023 with the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence.

Based in Estonia, the Centre of Excellence has been at the forefront of supporting NATO member nations and partners, such as Australia, strengthen their expertise in cyber defensive capabilities for over 30 years. Urmas Ruuto, the Head of Technology Branch at the Centre of Excellence, presented the keynote on the journey of the Centre of Excellence and its critical role in contributing to some of the world’s most developed sovereign cyber security understanding. Urmas joined a stimulating expert panel including Kristel Toom from the TalTech Estonian Maritime Academy, David Ormrod from McGrathNicol moderated by Dr Matthew Sorell Honorary Consul of Estonia.

Th event followed a visit by Estonian Ambassador Kersti Eesmaa early in the week where Centre CEO Matt Salier and the Ambassador discussed opportunities for deeper engagement between the two countries. The opportunity to learn from the experiences of Estonia in establishing one of the world’s most digitised governments, and the security implications of this, as well as discovering more about the annual exercises conducted in the Centre of Excellence – such as the annual Locked Shields exercise – were of significant interest to both parties.

Exploring the opportunity to develop a study tour for industry to visit Estonia to learn more first hand was also of keen interest.

To hear more from the event, visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch the recording and to stay up to date with opportunities from the growing collaboration and to register interest in the study tour click here