EP 45 - McGill University’s Rolland Winters on 16 years in the Canadian Armed Forces and the hardest cyber job in the world
Future of Data SecurityShow Notes
McGill University manages 460,000 digital identities across 250 buildings and runs hospital network traffic through its firewalls. Rolland Winters left 16 years in the Canadian Armed Forces to become Director of Cybersecurity at McGill, where he discovered what he calls "the hardest job in the world." Rolland breaks down the reality of securing one of the most decentralized environments in higher education, from researchers with their own budgets and cloud platforms to 170 to 180 AI destinations hitting the firewall and a student lifecycle that generates constant identity churn.
Topics Discussed: - Securing 460,000 identities in higher education - Research data risks in dual-use AI and defense - AI adoption across campus and the education gap - Student identity lifecycle challenges - Supply chain risk in decentralized universities - Threat sharing between Canadian universities - Digital sovereignty and Canada's AI investment - Leadership and team building through hackathons
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