What we avoided
A standalone cyber chapter would have competed with the networks its members already belong to, asked people to pick a side, and cut security off from the rest of GTA at exactly the point where it is most useful.
About
A working group that runs across, not beside.
GTA Cyber exists because cybersecurity is practised across every part of Global Tech Advocates, and expertise spread that thinly is only useful if something connects it.
The parent
Where we sit
Global Tech Advocates is the international grassroots tech community: more than 40,000 business leaders, experts and investors volunteering their time across 42 or more networks worldwide.
It is proudly independent, not-for-profit and volunteer-led. It works because it is designed for busy people on the frontline of the tech sector, and because the norm is to give first.
GTA Cyber is a working group within that structure, alongside the resource hubs GTA already runs on subjects such as net zero and disability.
The model
A centre of excellence, not another chapter
Global Tech Advocates runs more than forty working groups. Most are organised around a place or a sector. This one is organised around a discipline, which is why it runs across the others rather than beside them.
What we built instead
Members stay in their existing GTA network and keep their day jobs. The group sits across those networks, so a question raised in one city can be answered by a practitioner in another.
Why it holds together
People join this group because of what they know, not where they are. Pooling that expertise gives every GTA network the same access to it, and it survives members changing employer, sector or country.
How it runs
Principles we intend to keep
- Give first. The GTA norm, and the reason the network works. The group asks for time and expertise before it asks for anything else.
- No selling into the membership. Sponsors fund the programme. They do not get a list, a lead-gen pipeline, or a speaking slot dressed up as a session.
- Vendor-neutral by default. Guidance published by the group names categories and practices rather than products, including our sponsors’ products.
- Practitioners set the agenda. What the group works on is decided by the people doing the work, not by whoever is funding it that year.
- Light on process. Busy people on the frontline is the design constraint. If something needs a committee to happen, it probably should not happen.
Still forming, deliberately.
The group is new. Its remit, its programme and its leads are being shaped now by the people joining it, which is the point rather than a caveat. If you practise security inside the GTA world, this is the moment where taking part actually changes what it becomes.
Take part