Lack of interest has led to the cancellation of a University of California-Irvine-hosted cyber protection trade mission to Singapore and Malaysia starting next month, and possible destinations for a rescheduled trip include Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress next year.
Organizers last month said they hoped their initiative would help area cybersecurity companies gain access to “business development opportunities, potential partners, agents, distributors, trade associations and business groups” in Southeast Asia.
“We just at the end of the day didn’t have enough interest from companies to make that 18-hour trip or whatever it is when we were really only covering two countries,” said Bryan Cunningham, the head of the university’s Cybersecurity Policy & Research Institute.
The CPRI-sponsored mission was to be hosted in a three-way partnership with the California state government and the federal government.
Cunningham told the Business Journal last week that no firm decisions on a rescheduled destination have been made and CPRI will evaluate options based on the best interests of California cybersecurity companies.
The Spanish city hosts the Mobile World Congress from Feb. 24 to 27 of next year and would give the group access to the full array of European Union countries “so that our companies can have exposure to a wider range of potential government and nongovernmental customers.”
Attracting Businesses
Cunningham said there is a relatively small group of companies that can take advantage of the trip.
“They have to be large enough and far enough along in their business development that they can justify to their investors spending the money to send a couple people to wherever they’re going to send them,” he said.
Cunningham said that startups in particular closely watch their travel spending, while larger companies already “have a foot in the door.”
He is still hoping for about a half-dozen companies to take part in the rescheduled trip, as he seeks more “bang for the buck” for companies in Orange County and the rest of California.
The mission had originally been scheduled for the two Southeast Asian cities from Sept. 30 to Oct. 4.
“The rapid development of digital technologies in Southeast Asia is making the region a prime target for cybercriminals,” the organizers said last month.
Trade mission organizers cited recent research saying that economic powerhouse Singapore is expected to spend almost $850 million on information security this year. The U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur reports that Malaysia plans to spend about $632 million on cybersecurity, the university said.
