SPRITE+ hosts a second online sandpit

SPRITE+ hosts a second online sandpit

Overview

In July 2021 we welcomed 35 participants from 25 different organisations to our online sandpit focussed on the theme of 'digital vulnerabilities'. This is one of our four Challenge Themes identified by our Expert Fellows Community.

Sandpit participants were selected from a range of organisations, career stages and research expertise, including technical, scientific, and social science disciplines.

Over the course of five sessions spread over three weeks, the sandpit participants co-created innovative interdisciplinary projects to explore aspects of digital vulnerability from technical, social, and socio-technical perspectives.

Some of the questions they considered included:

How should we conceptualise, identify, and assess vulnerabilities to future digital harm?
How might we protect networks, hardware, individuals, communities, organisations and nation states from increasingly complex harms and/or make them resilient in the face of harm?
What roles will technology, people, organisations, governments, and societies play both in enabling and reducing digital risks and harms?

Sandpit participants were guided by mentors, including members of the SPRITE+ Mangagement Team; SPRITE+ Expert Fellow, Professor Lizzie Coles Kemp (Professor in Information Security, Royal Holloway University of London); SPRITE+ Project Partner, Dr John Blythe (Head of Research and Behavioural Science, Cybsafe); and former SPRITE+ sandpit participant, Professor Washington Yotto Ochieng (Director of Institute for Security Science and Technology, Imperial College London).

The sandpit culminated in presentations to the Funding Panel, which was chaired by SPRITE+ Director, Professor Emma Barrett. Other members of the Panel included Lee Smith (Fellow, Arm), Lucy Mason (Defence and Security Expert, PA Consulting), Michael Joyce (Co-executive director, The Smart Cybersecurity Network (SERENE-RISC)), Oz Alashe (CEO and Founder, CybSafe) and Professor Vladimiro Sassone (SPRITE+ Co-Director and Professor of Cyber Security, The University of Southampton).

Following deliberations by the Panel, five proposals were awarded funding. More information on the funded projects will be published in due course.

We'd like to thank all of our sandpit participants, mentors, stakeholders and funding panel members for their contributions.

Feedback from participants

I valued the opportunity to network and work with people that I would not have otherwise, the process of co-creating a proposal, meeting stakeholders, and getting peer and panellist feedback.

Thank you for organising such a well-run sandpit. I did enjoy taking part and am now looking forward to this little project and the start of some new collaborations with this team.

Meeting mentors was lovely – they were all very helpful and offered some constructive feedback.

Everything was valuable, but some highlights are as follows. Forming connections with other people in the area, particularly from other disciplines. Understanding and discussing key TIPS issues in the area of Future Vulnerabilities. Developing project proposals at speed. Getting valuable insight from mentors at every stage of the process. Mentor and funding clinics to get the support we need.

I just wanted to thank you for choosing me to attend the Sandpit – my first. It was incredibly well organised. I also made some lovely new friends whom I would never have met without this Sandpit.

More information

See our how-to guide on how to run a virtual sandpit here.