Joining forces with the University of Calgary and security solution provider JAWZ Inc., Toronto-headquartered Telus Advanced Communications recently made a $225,000 commitment to help establish the eSecurity Innovation Centre, to be located in Calgary’s University Research Park.
According to JAWZ, the facility will bring together skilled security professionals and the latest technology to develop and deploy security solutions.
Robert Kubbernus, chairman and CEO of JAWZ, says IT security is a growing concern that requires the development of an infrastructure for higher education training and delivery of information.
“Every time we come up with a new patch, somebody finds a new hole in the system,” Kubbernus says. “It may sound like an insurmountable problem. The challenge can be enormous. There is huge risk, but there is also huge opportunity.”
Dr. Tom Keenan of the University of Calgary approached JAWZ with the idea for the centre.
Kubbernus explains: “(Keenan) sat down with us and said at some point (he would) like to develop, with a partner, an eSecurity Innovation Centre where we can bring the best of corporate Canada and the university together for the development of e-security tools, product development and strategies and to be able to collaborate worldwide with other universities. No one has ever taken an entire department and turned it toward e-security.”
Brian Bouckaert, Telus’s director for strategic client relationships, says that as a result of the joint project Telus will be able to call upon “world-class research minds for security expertise unlike any other in the world.”
Construction of the eSecurity Innovation Centre is already underway, and JAWZ and Telus expect it to be up and running as of January 2001.
“(Information technology) moves so fast,” Kubbernus says. “We learned a long time ago that you have to have partners. We can’t stay isolated in our development and we can’t be isolated in our thinking.”