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Heather Adkins
The AI-Cybersecurity Essay Prize Competition Review Board Member
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Heather Adkins is a 22-year Google veteran and founding member of the Google Security Team. As VP, Security Engineering and head of Google’s Office of Cybersecurity Resilience she has built a global team responsible for maintaining the safety and security of Google’s networks, systems and applications. She has an extensive background in practical security, and has worked to build and secure some of the world’s largest infrastructure. She is co-author of Building Secure and Reliable Systems (O’Reilly, 2020), is deputy chair of CISA’s Cyber Safety Review Board, and has advised numerous organizations on how to adopt modern defendable architectures.
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Alex Bollfrass
Commissioning Editor
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Dr. Alex Bollfrass is a Commissioning Editor at Binding Hook and Head of Strategy, Technology, and Arms Control at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. He was previously a fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center and a nuclear weapons policy researcher at the Arms Control Association, the Stimson Center, and the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich.
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Katerina Fytatzi
Commissioning Editor
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Katerina Fytatzi is a Commissioning Editor at Binding Hook, a media-spinoff of Virtual Routes. Prior to joining Binding Hook, she worked at Oxford Analytica for over a decade, covering international issues, including cybersecurity, the geopolitics of cyber conflict, and disinformation. She managed Oxford Analytica’s Global Risk Monitor, which tracks the main global macroeconomic and geopolitical risks in the year ahead, and researched global security issues for a consultancy prior to that. She holds an M.A. in International Relations from King’s College London and a B.A. in International Relations from Boston University.
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Taylor Grossman
Commissioning Editor
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Taylor Grossman is a commissioning editor with Binding Hook, a Virtual Routes organization, and deputy director for digital security at the Institute for Security and Technology, where she works on the Ransomware Task Force and other projects. She holds an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford and a B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University.
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Klaus Hommels
The AI-Cybersecurity Essay Prize Competition Review Board Member
Klaus Hommels is one of Europe’s leading business angels and venture capitalists. He is also a prominent voice for the European Tech Ecosystem with the aim of strengthening Europe’s sovereignty in times of digital transformation. Klaus has repeatedly been recognised as one of Europe’s top Venture Capital investors, having invested in many major players in the tech sector. He was an early investor in companies such as Skype, King, Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb, Revolut, Klarna, Sumup, Zoom, Coinbase and Isar Aerospace. He founded Lakestar in 2012 after running his own Venture Capital fund, Hommels Holding. As a passionate advocate of the European Tech Ecosystem, as well as the digital and technical sovereignty of our continent, Klaus frequently interacts with politicians, regulators and corporates to bring European technology and capital flows on the global agenda. He chairs the board of directors of the NATO Innovation Fund and is a founding member of think-tank initiatives such as the Internet Economy Foundation and the European Center for Digital Competitiveness in Berlin. Klaus is part of Henkel’s digital board and the innovation board of the Munich Security Conference. He is a member of the UK Capital Markets Industry Taskforce that consults the Chancellor of the Exchequer under LSEG leadership. Klaus was also the Chair of Invest Europe, the world’s largest association of private capital, from July 2022 to June 2023. He is involved with Ashoka to support those entrepreneurs that seek innovations for the good of society. Klaus started his career at Bertelsmann, before joining AOL Germany in 1995 as a board member. He was also a venture partner of Benchmark Capital Europe. He earned his PhD in finance from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
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Mikko Hyppönen
The AI-Cybersecurity Essay Prize Competition Review Board Member
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Mikko Hyppönen is one of the most recognized cyber security experts world-wide, a keynote speaker and a best-selling author. Hypponen’s TED Talk has been seen by 2 million people and translated into 40 languages. He has served as a board member for the Nordic Business Forum and as an advisor for the Monetary Authority of Singapore and EUROPOL. He has written for the New York Times, Wired and Scientific American, and lectured at the universities of Oxford, Stanford and Cambridge.
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Shashank Joshi
The AI-Cybersecurity Essay Prize Competition Review Board Co-Chair
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Shashank Joshi is The Economist’s defence editor. Prior to joining The Economist in 2018, he served as Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and Research Associate at Oxford University’s Changing Character of War Programme. He has published books on Iran’s nuclear programme and India’s armed forces, written for a wide range of newspapers and journals, and appeared regularly on radio and television. He holds degrees from Cambridge and Harvard, where he served as a Kennedy Scholar from Britain to the United States.
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Kersti Kaljulaid
The AI-Cybersecurity Essay Prize Competition Review Board Co-Chair
Kersti Kaljulaid served as the President of the Republic of Estonia from 2016 to 2021. Before her presidency, she was a Member of the European Court of Auditors, advised Prime Minister Mart Laar, and held various high-level positions in the energy, investment banking, and telecom sectors. With degrees in genetic engineering and economy, she has been a member of the Supervisory Board of the Estonian Genome Center and served as the Council Chair of the University of Tartu from 2012 to 2016. In the summer of 2021, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed President Kaljulaid as the Global Advocate for the ‘Every Woman Every Child’ strategy for the subsequent two years. In 2023, she co-chaired the United Nations High-level Panel on the Teaching Profession. She holds the distinction of being the first Estonian featured on Forbes’ list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women. In 2021, she founded the President Kaljulaid Foundation, an NGO and think-tank for Advancing Democracy, Empowering the Vulnerable, and Navigating the Societal Impact of Digitalization.
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Monica Kello
Commissioning Editor
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Monica Kello is a Lecturer in War Studies (Cyber Security) at King’s College London and a non-resident fellow of The Hague Program on International Cyber Security at Leiden University. She is a founding trustee and board member of the European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative (ECCRI) and the initiator of The Hague Threat Intelligence Exchange (Hague TIX). Monica holds a PhD in Cyber Security from the University of Oxford.
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Katharine Khamhaengwong
Editor
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Katharine Khamhaengwong is an editor at Binding Hook, a Virtual Routes publication, as well as a freelance writer and editor largely focused on the Caucasus. She has an M.A. in Central Eurasian studies from Indiana University, where she received a Fulbright grant to conduct thesis research on contemporary Muslim communities in Georgia, as well as a B.A. in Political Science and Middle East Studies from Tulane University.
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Maria Markstedter
The AI-Cybersecurity Essay Prize Competition Review Board Member
Maria Markstedter is an internationally recognized cybersecurity expert specializing in Arm reverse engineering and processor security. As the CEO of Azeria Labs GmbH, she provides advanced technical security training to government agencies and tech companies. In addition to her industry roles, Maria is an adjunct professor at the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studies at Johns Hopkins SAIS. She serves on the cybersecurity advisory committee for the fashion conglomerate Inditex, the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and the Review Board for the Black Hat Conference. Maria is the author of Blue Fox: Arm Assembly Internals and Reverse Engineering, and her contributions to the field earned her the title of Forbes Cybersecurity Person of the Year in 2020 and a spot on Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in Tech in 2018.
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Eva Maydell
The AI-Cybersecurity Essay Prize Competition Review Board Member
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Eva Maydell is a Member of the European Parliament and was one of the lead negotiators on the EU’s Chips Act and Artificial Intelligence Act. Maydell is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Her policy priorities include innovation and the use of new technologies to support European competitiveness and fostering cooperation among global likeminded partners in the tech and democracy space. She is a Board Member for the World Economic Forum’s Digital Europe program and a member of the WEF Global Future Council of Europe. She is also the co-founder of the Council on the Future partnered with the Munich Security Conference. Eva has been awarded the European Parliament's MEP of the Year Award twice. She has also been included in FT's own 'New Europe 100' ranking of CEE's emerging change-makers, European Forbes' 30 Under 30 list and others. She has also been featured in POLITICO’s 40 most influential MEPs and “POLITICO 28” list of people who shape Europe and POLITICO’s 2018 Women who shape Brussels.
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James Shires
Managing Editor
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James Shires is the Co-Director of Virtual Routes, and Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House. He was previously an Assistant Professor in Cybersecurity Governance at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, University of Leiden. He is also a Fellow with The Hague Program on International Cyber Security. He has written widely on issues of cybersecurity and international politics, including cybersecurity expertise, digital authoritarianism, spyware regulation, and hack-and-leak operations. He is the author of The Politics of Cybersecurity in the Middle East (Hurst/Oxford University Press 2021).
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Max Smeets
Managing Editor
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Max Smeets is the Co-Director of Virtual Routes, and serves as Managing Editor of Binding Hook. He also holds research positions at ETH Zurich, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Max is the author of Ransom War: How Cyber Crime Became a Threat to National Security and No Shortcuts: Why States Struggle to Develop a Military Cyber Force. Max received a BA in Economics, Politics and Statistics from University College Roosevelt, Utrecht University and an MPhil (Brasenose College) and DPhil (St. John’s College) in International Relations from the University of Oxford.
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Terms and Conditions for the AI-Cybersecurity Essay Prize Competition

Introduction

The AI-Cybersecurity Essay Prize Competition (the “Competition”) is organized by Virtual Routes (“Virtual Routes”) in partnership with the Munich Security Conference (“MSC”). It is sponsored by Google (the “Sponsor”). By entering the Competition, participants agree to these Terms and Conditions (T&Cs).

Eligibility

The Competition is open to individuals worldwide who are experts in the fields of cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (“AI”). Participants must ensure that their participation complies with local laws and regulations.

Submission Guidelines

Essays must address the question: “How will Artificial Intelligence change cybersecurity, and what are the implications for Europe? Discuss potential strategies that policymakers can adopt to navigate these changes.”

Submissions must be original, unpublished works between 800-1200 words, excluding footnotes but including hyperlinks for references.

Essays must be submitted by 2 January 2025, 00:00 am CET., through the official submission portal provided by Virtual Routes.

Only single-authored essays are accepted. Co-authored submissions will not be considered.

Participants are responsible for ensuring their submissions do not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of third parties.

Judging and Awards

Essays will be judged based on insightfulness, relevance, originality, clarity, and evidence by a review board comprising distinguished figures from academia, industry, and government.

The decision of the review board is final and binding in all matters related to the Competition.

Prizes are as follows: 1st Place: €10,000; Runner-Up: €5,000; 3rd Place: €2,500; 4th-5th Places: €1,000 each. The winner will also be invited to attend The Munich Security Conference

Intellectual Property Rights

The author retains ownership of the submitted essay.

By submitting the essay, the author grants Virtual Routes exclusive, royalty-free rights to use, reproduce, publish, distribute, and display the essay for purposes related to the Competition, including but not limited to educational, promotional, and research-related activities.

The author represents, warrants, and agrees that no essay submitted as part of the essay prize competition violates or infringes upon the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other personal or proprietary rights, breaches, or conflicts with any obligation, such as a confidentiality obligation, or contains libellous, defamatory, or otherwise unlawful material.

The author agrees that the organizers can use your name (or your pseudonym) and an image of you in association with your essay for purposes of publicity, promotion and any other activity related to the exercise of its rights under these Terms.

The organizers may remove any essay-related content from its platforms at any time and without explanation.

The organizers may block contributions from particular email or IP addresses without notice or explanation.

The organizers may enable advertising on its platforms and associated social media accounts, including in connection with the display of your essay. The organizers may also use your Material to promote its products and services.

The organizers may, at its sole discretion, categorise Material, whether by means of ranking according to popularity or by any other criteria.

Data Protection

Personal information collected in connection with the Competition will be processed in accordance with Virtual Routes’ Privacy Policy. Participants agree to the collection, processing, and storage of their personal data for the purposes of the Competition.

Liability and Indemnity

Virtual Routes, MSC, and the Sponsor will not be liable for any damages arising from participation in the Competition, except where prohibited by law.

Participants agree to indemnify Virtual Routes, MSC, and the Sponsor against any claims, damages, or losses resulting from a breach of these T&Cs.

General Conditions

Virtual Routes reserves the right to cancel, suspend, or modify the Competition or these T&Cs if fraud, technical failures, or any other factor beyond Virtual Routes’ reasonable control impairs the integrity or proper functioning of the Competition, as determined by Virtual Routes in its sole discretion.

Any attempt by any person to deliberately undermine the legitimate operation of the Competition may be a violation of criminal and civil law, and, should such an attempt be made, Virtual Routes reserves the right to seek damages from any such person to the fullest extent permitted by law.

Governing Law

These Terms and Conditions are governed by the laws of the United Kingdom, without regard to its conflict of law principles. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms and Conditions, including any question regarding its existence, validity, or termination, shall be referred to and finally resolved by the courts of the United Kingdom. The participants agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located in the United Kingdom for the resolution of all disputes arising from or related to these Terms and Conditions or the Competition.