Over 150 global leaders and experts from the public and private sectors gathered in Geneva this week for the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting on Cybersecurity Summit to exchange tales from the trenches and examine how to better arm companies and organizations against cyberattacks that are increasing in frequency and sophistication. A panel entitled “Can The Market Fix It” — one of three moderated by The Innovator’s Editor-in-Chief Jennifer L. Schenker — looked at how to make privacy by design and security by design a standard. Panelists discussed whether there are new communities besides government and investors who could play an important role in shaping or creating new market incentives to improve cyber security in innovation, new technologies and services. There was general agreement that large established companies could help lift all boats by imposing strict cybersecurity compliance standards on all of their supply chain partners and startups they do business with. Key to making such a system work would be the establishment of a globally accepted cyber-hygiene rating system though it is still unclear how — and how quickly - such a system could be established. Some participants said they believe there is an opportunity for the World Economic Forum to play a role. There was also agreement that there needs to be clearer rules around liability. Questions that need to be answered include what happens when companies become collateral damage in state-led cyberwarfare? Do insurers need to rethink and be more transparent about what cyber insurance policies cover? Should a small company that is being acquired be required to indefinitely accept 50% of the liability in case of a future cyber breach connected to its technology? There was much talk at the conference about how companies can limit their liability through proactive measures. Many business leaders feel unprepared to deal with cybersecurity. Boards and C-Suite executives need to be educated so that they can properly assess the company’s risk and develop action plans. Employees also need to be educated as the majority of cyber incidents are their fault. Participants shared how their companies are encouraging positive behavioral changes by supplementing training with gamification in the form of cash rewards or by giving medals to business units that have the best cyber-hygiene track record. Such methods are being paired with the use of behavioral analytics technology to spot anomalies in employee behavior. To prevent external attacks speakers at the conference said that trust needs to be established to enable more sharing of best practices and knowledge about new viruses, worms and other types of hacks within industry groups. Closer collaboration with law enforcement was also encouraged. The Forum’s Centre For Cybersecurity, which organized this week’s conference, said it plans to deliver ten key messages to global leaders in Davos in January.

This week tech giants made headlines once again by leveraging their platforms to move into new businesses. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that Google will soon offer checking accounts to consumers, becoming the latest Silicon Valley heavyweight to push into finance. The project, code-named Cache, is expected to launch next year with accounts run by Citigroup and a credit union at Stanford University. Big tech companies see financial services as a way to get closer to users and glean valuable data. Apple introduced a credit card this summer, Amazon has talked to banks about offering checking accounts and Facebook is working on a digital currency it hopes will upend global payments. Meanwhile, XPeng Motors, the Chinese electric vehicle startup backed by Chinese Internet giant Alibaba, has raised a fresh injection of $400 million in capital and has taken on Chinse mobile phone maker Xiomi as a strategic investor. Food retail is also under siege. Amazon, which now owns the Whole Foods grocery chain, confirmed this week that it additionally plans to open brick-and-mortar grocery stores under its own brand. An Amazon spokesperson told CNBC the new grocery chain will be “distinct” from Whole Foods and use conventional checkout but declined to provide further details on what kind of products the stores will offer or future store locations. A separate report from the Journal said the new grocery brand would have a lower price point than Whole Foods. The company currently has 10 Amazon Go stores with cashierless checkout.

New digital technologies are not just changing business, they also have an impact on what governments do. Indeed some believe govtech -which seeks to use technology innovation to reinvent public services in areas as diverse as health, education and mobility- will become the future operating model of government itself. Against that backdrop government officials, tech startups, lawyers and academics gathered in Paris November 14 to talk about the state of play at a conference called the Govtech Summit organized by PUBLIC, a company that connects Europe’s public sector with startups and runs a growth program for tech companies in Denmark, France, Germany, and the UK.
Speakers at the conference included Estonian President Kersti Kalulaid, Cedric O, France’s Secretary of State for The Digital Economy of France, Nikolai Astrup, Norway’s Minister of Digitalization and Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister for ICT and Innovation. In a morning panel about the state of govtech 2019 participants were asked to rank the evolution of the sector on a scale of one to ten (with ten being the highest). While the audience weighed in at 4 or 5 government officials such as Cedric O were more optimistic, voting for a ranking of 6 or 7, with caveats. He and other government officials admitted, though, that much more progress is needed.
PUBLIC CEO and Co-founder Daniel Korski, ex-deputy head of policy at Number 10, Downing Street, could not agree more. “We have both a hardware and a software problem,” he says. “We are all familiar with the hardware problems: outdated procurement policies, being risk adverse and limited funds for experimental solutions.” The software problem, he says, is the minds of policy makers. “It is possible to rise to become a senior official in a government department and have never once touched or learned about modern new technology and what it can do for government,” he says. In addition to making sure that universities that train the next generation of politicians include courses on technology, governments should introduce a whole series of learning tools for people who are currently in office and insist that learning to use these tools be a prerequisite to moving to a higher position, he says. One of the key messages must be that it is not necessary to authorize billion euro plus contracts for massive digital projects. Often startups can do things far faster and more cheaply, says Korski.
The incentive to get it right is strong. PUBLIC, which organized the summit, believes that if government can organize a way to work more closely with startups there is a chance to not only transform the public sector but also potentially flow billions of dollars into the European tech scene.