DIT Press Release: UK agrees historic digital trade deal with Singapore

There has been a historic digital trade deal established between the UK and Singapore on the 9th December 2021. A press release about the Digital Economy Agreement has been given by the UK Government Department for International Trade (DIT). The press release summary reads:

• International Trade Secretary secures agreement in principle on a digital trade deal with Singapore

• The Digital Economy Agreement - the world’s most comprehensive digital trade agreement - will capitalise on our strengths as the world’s second largest services exporter and leading digital hub

• More opportunities for UK firms to target advanced, tech savvy and rapidly expanding markets in Asia

A full press release is available in PDF here, or on the Department for International Trade site here.

Awen Collective is featured twice in the Press Release, alongside other great British companies:

“A third of our exports to Singapore are already digitally delivered, including in finance, advertising and engineering, and this deal will create new opportunities to expand digital trade. Services companies will be the big winners, from financial and telecoms giants like Standard Chartered or BT Group to software companies like Wales-based Awen Collective.”

and

“The deal establishes a new partnership with Singapore to build ever-stronger cybersecurity defences against attacks by private operators or hostile states, which are a growing threat to individuals and businesses. Companies like Coventry’s CyberOwl and Caerphilly-based Awen Collective have set up in Singapore and are poised to be at the forefront of protecting critical national infrastructure and businesses against cyber risks, fraud, money laundering, terrorism funding and organised crime”

CEO & Cofounder of Awen Collective, Daniel Lewis said:

“The cyber security of our critical national infrastructures such as energy, water, transportation, smart cities and other industrial sectors is a key concern for the UK Government, Singapore Government and many other governments around the world. This agreement takes us a step closer to building more secure and more resilient societies, and Awen Collective is very proud to be part of the solution. We will be taking full advantage of the benefits that the agreement brings, and look forward to working collaboratively with our Singaporean friends going forward.”

Awen Collective is an Industrial Cyber Security Software company whose mission is to make society safer by reducing cyber risks within the sectors on which we rely daily. Awen has two products: Profile, an industrial cyber security compliance system, and Dot, an Operational Technology asset and vulnerability discovery system. Awen Collective was founded in Wales in 2017, and is a registered company in England & Wales with a wholly-owned subsidiary in the Netherlands. An ecosystem of Awen partners assist in international operations, including in Singapore and across Asia Pacific. For further details please visit: https://www.awencollective.com/

Welsh industrial cyber security company opens Dutch subsidiary

Photo by ruddy.media

Industrial cyber security software company, Awen Collective Ltd, has opened a wholly-owned Dutch subsidiary giving the ability to help critical national infrastructure, smart city and manufacturing organisations across the Netherlands become more cyber resilient.

Awen Collective CEO & Founder, Daniel Lewis says: “the creation of the subsidiary is a strategic decision which enables Awen to more easily reach new markets with the help of our investors and partners based in the country. We have registered the subsidiary in one of the international security hubs — The Hague — and are excited to use this as a launchpad for our international growth.”

The Netherlands, and The Hague in particular, were chosen for several reasons:

• Ease of doing business in The Netherlands

• The strong industrial sector

• The innovative spirit, and in particular strong desire to progress in Industry 4.0, Smart Cities and AgriTech

• The rapidly growing security community in The Hague

• The English language is widely spoken

• Geographic closeness to the UK

• One of the international hubs to the rest of the world

• Relationship with the rest of the European Union, particularly the other countries in the BeNeLux and Schengen areas

• Support from investors.

Awen's CTO and fellow cofounder, Jules Farrow, says: “we're delighted to be putting down international roots at Awen Collective to enable us to work freely and easily with our friends in Europe. The opportunities this opens up for us for both research and development, and continued business expansion are significant. The Netherlands makes the perfect EU-base for Awen.”

Photo by Alexander

The Netherlands is the perfect next step for Awen, as Awen’s Head of Partnership, James Sandrone, suggests: “The Dutch business culture and the Awen culture are so similar: open and honest, where relationships and trust are key!“

CEO Daniel continues “This is just the beginning of exciting international growth for Awen Collective.”

Awen Collective

Awen Collective has the mission to reduce the cyber risk and increase the resiliency of the industrial sectors which societies rely on daily. Critical national infrastructure sectors such as energy, water, transportation and Smart Cities, as well as other industrial sectors such as manufacturing and warehousing are under increasing threat from cyber attack. Awen Collectives innovative cyber security software was built specifically with industrial engineering processes in mind, and is tailored specifically to the unique requirements of Operational Technologies (OT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Awen Collective was founded in 2017, has it’s headquarters in Caerphilly in Wales (UK) and a subsidiary office in The Hague in the Netherlands.

A note of thanks

Team Awen would like to send out a special thanks TIIN Capital, InnovationQuarter, the Security Delta and the British Embassy in The Hague for their assistance in exploring the market in the Netherlands. Thanks also to Goossens Notary for their help in registering the B.V. subsidiary.

Awen is Cybersecurity Made in Europe

As of 11th March 2021, Awen Collective has received the “Cybersecurity Made in Europe” mark after meeting the requirements outlined by the European Cyber Security Organisation (ECSO).

The label is issued across Europe somewhat geographically via ECSO Authorised partners. Our issuer was Cyber Wales CIC, which Awen has been a member of since our very earliest days as a business.

The requirements include ensuring compliance to the “Indispensable baseline security requirements for the secure ICT products and services” by ENISA, which we easily achieved thanks to our existing CyberEssentials+ certification and our in-depth expertise around the NIS Directive, the Cyber Assessment Framework (CAF), ISO 27001 and IEC 62443.

This ECSO label is very important for us, as we have always considered ourselves as being Made in Wales, Made in Britain and Made in Europe. Every single line of code in our products is developed by us here in Wales, and we are dedicated to making society safer by increasing the cyber resiliency of our critical national infrastructures (and other industrial sectors) in Wales, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, right across Europe and internationally.

The ECSO label is fast becoming a mark of both quality and trust - and we are honoured and very pleased to be one of the first to have received it.

Profile is a compliance checking and improvement tool which was built specifically with the UK and EU-wide NIS Directive in mind.

Dot is a software system for asset discovery and cyber vulnerability analysis built specifically for Operational Technologies (OT) such as Industrial Automation and Control Systems (IACS), as well as for the specific constraints of industrial engineering processes.

If what we are doing in the UK, Europe and internationally is of interest, then please do contact us today.

Awen Collective secures investment round led by Dutch Security TechFund

Caerphilly (Wales, UK)/ Naarden (NL), 4th March 2021 - Dutch Security TechFund, managed by TIIN Capital, has led the third investment round in Awen Collective Ltd. Other investors are SFC Capital and two strategic angel investors from the UK. It is the joint mission of Awen Collective and Dutch Security TechFund to make society safer. For Awen Collective this means creating software to increase the cyber resiliency of Critical National Infrastructure and Manufacturing. Dutch Security TechFund aims to support and invest in businesses which advance this mission.

Read the full press release in Dutch and English here [PDF]

Read the blog post on the TIIN Capital Website (in Dutch)
(TIIN Capital are the managers of the Dutch Security TechFund)

To summarise the investors in this round are:

• The Dutch Security TechFund (managed by TIIN Capital) - lead investor

• SFC EIS Fund and the SFC BBI Fund (managed by SFC Capital) - follow-on funding from their 2019 SEIS investment in us!

• Paul Dennis (an experienced executive from the industrial automation industry)

• Paul Rix (an experienced process engineer from the industrial automation industry)

The press release also includes a quote from the Deputy British Ambassador to The Netherlands, Lucy Ferguson, and a quote from Philip Meijer of InnovationQuarter.

Awen Collective wishes to thank all the investors, the British Embassy in The Hague, InnovationQuarter, Lime Advisory and Acuity Law for all their help during this investment round and going forward.

What the UK Government is doing to protect our cities from future cyber threats

The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) have chosen Awen Collective for their Smart Cities innovation acceleration programme.

The UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is part of the GCHQ intelligence and security organisation, announced on 2nd February 2021 that they have chosen three British businesses, including Awen Collective, to work on some of the toughest security problems within the Smart Cities domain as part of a two and a half month virtual programme.

WatchKeeper and the Cyber Defence Service are the two other businesses in the cohort. The programme is the 7th cohort in a series of NCSC Cyber Accelerators and is the first to have been dedicated to Smart Cities Security. The programme is in collaboration with Wayra, the innovation division of telecoms company Telefónica, and has partnerships with the Digital Catapult, Microsoft and others.

Cyber-attacks to energy, water, transportation, or manufacturing organisations are causing economic damage to these sectors and could cause significant disruption to society if the attack were large enough. It is the mission of Awen Collective to increase resilience and reduce the impact of cyber-attacks on society's critical infrastructures. Awen Collective does this by creating software to improve cyber security policies and procedures, and to enhance visibility in operational technology environments before attackers have opportunities.

Smart cities are a frequently discussed and increasingly popular concept. There are many flavours of smart city, but essentially, they involve taking advantage of digital technology for services such as traffic, electricity, heating, waste collection and other community services. The concept is popular and budgets for the implementation of such technology are increasing.

Smart city technology will bring efficiencies, cost savings, and better service to its end-users. However, the employment of smart city technology when it is overlaid on top of the legacy equipment found in the traditional infrastructure sectors has led to an increase in cyber vulnerabilities. Therefore, there is an increase in attention to industrial cyber security initiatives, products, and services by both the public and private sectors.

This cohort of the NCSC Accelerator is not the only initiative or programme that Awen Collective is involved in related to Smart Cities cyber security. Awen Collective was also announced in September 2020 by the UK Government Department for International Trade (DIT), as one of 30 British tech companies to be chosen as the first participants in their Tech Export Academy, which is a 9 month programme aimed at showcasing the best smart cities technologies across the Asia Pacific region. The CEO of Awen Collective, Daniel Lewis, was also announced by techUK (the British technology trade association) in November 2020 as being on the steering board of the techUK Smart City group.

Our civil society continues to move toward a more efficient and sustainable future powered by data in schemes such as Smart Cities and Industry 4.0, we are doing our best to look out for the security, safety and privacy of everyone.

If this article is of interest to you or your business, and you would like to discuss more about what we are doing at Awen Collective, including our products Profile and Dot, then please contact us today for a chat.

Dot Demo Event - 15th October 2020 - Post-event write-up

On Thursday the 15th October 2020, Awen Collective officially launched Dot in the UK.

Dot is an asset and vulnerability discovery software system which reduces cyber risk and increases cyber resiliency of Operational Technologies (those technologies which control our energy, water, transportation and manufacturing systems). For more information about Dot please visit our page on Dot, and/or contact us today.

The event also marked the end of a 12 month project (called Project DOMINO) with the UK Ministry of Defence, which saw the Dot product accelerated into use cases for the defence and security sectors. Dot is a commercial product developed by Awen Collective, a Welsh Cyber Security Software company. For more information about how our work applies to the defence sector please visit our page on the defence sector, and/or contact us today.

Project DOMINO was funded by the Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) of MOD DSTL. Awen Collective was the lead partner on the project, with BAR Associates assisting. We released a press release about Project DOMINO at the end of 2019.

The demonstration event was hosted by Awen Collective, in collaboration with BAR Associates, Thales Cyber & Consulting and the National Digital Exploitation Centre (NDEC).

We had over 70 attendees from a range of organisations: the UK Ministry of Defence, other parts of UK Government, a few British industrial sector regulators, energy companies, water companies, defence sector companies, water sector companies, and other Friends of Awen.