![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/identifi-global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/PoppyDowellWayra.png\")
<\/p>\n\n\t<\/p>\n
\n\tPoppy Dowell<\/a><\/span> is Cyber Security Accelerator Program Manager at Wayra<\/a> UK- the startup accelerator programme set up by Telef\u00f3nica in 2012. The programme works to help start-ups develop, in part by collaborating with third-party investors and industry specialists – like us. Poppy has kindly agreed to talk about her role in Wayra, the industry hubs in which it operates, and her work with the GCHQ Cyber Accelerator…<\/p>\n \n\tPoppy Dowell (PD): <\/span><\/strong>I was working on the innovation team in my previous role at Atkins<\/a>, so that attracted me to viewing things a little bit differently. I realised that innovation – working out how the future\u2019s going to look – was more fun than business or IT change in, shall we say, a \u2018normal\u2019 company. When I saw the role at Wayra advertised, I thought, \u201cthis is the perfect opportunity for me to move into an industry which is more innovative and future-looking.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tPD:<\/span> <\/strong>Usually, partners of GCHQ can\u2019t announce they\u2019re partners. However, the nature of this project and the need to attract start-ups to it means that we\u2019ve needed to be very public about the fact that Wayra and GCHQ are working together. Because of that, GCHQ has been very conscious of being transparent and open with regard to this partnership, which has been amazing to be part of. <\/p>\n \n\tWe have a great guy, Norval [Scott, Head of Communications and PR], on our Wayra team. He deals with all of our PR, and he\u2019s just been incredible with all of this, managing the comms relationship between GCHQ and <\/span>DCMS<\/a> and making sure everything goes smoothly. It\u2019s definitely been a learning curve for both sides though! <\/p>\n \n\tPD: <\/span><\/strong>Predominantly, I run the cyber accelerator programme, but I also support some of the other Open Future accelerators we have around the country like Oldham and one in Birmingham. Basically, I help the companies get access to whoever they need to support their business. I introduce them to investors, help them articulate their pitch better, bring in technical experts: pretty much anything they need, I try to make happen.<\/p>\n \n\tPD:<\/span> <\/strong>The official line is that we believe innovation can come from anywhere, so we have made democratising entrepreneurship our mission, not just in London but throughout the UK. We help identify, develop, promote and scale UK based start-ups by leveraging Telefonica\u2019s global resources. <\/p>\n \n\tFor example, a new business can find it incredibly difficult to get access to the right network. If you want to get investment, you need to have around 50 hours\u2019 worth of meetings, and you\u2019ll probably then only get 1% to invest out of that, and that can take months and months. For a startup, time is of the essence, and if you don\u2019t get money you\u2019re not going to survive.<\/p>\n \n\tIf you\u2019re in an acceleration programme, we can speed that up because we have access to those investors, we can help schedule those meetings, and we can do it much quicker than you\u2019d be able to on your own. So that\u2019s one of the main benefits. <\/p>\n \n\tPitching, especially for cyber companies, can be really very difficult. They have to articulate what they\u2019re doing in a manner that everyone will understand, and a lot of seniors and board level members of investor companies still don\u2019t really understand the sector. We help codify their key messages and help them communicate what they do in a way that will be attractive to investors and partners.<\/p>\n \n\tBut really, we can help them with any support they might need or issues they might face – from legal to financial to talent management. It\u2019s a network that helps them accelerate their business launch and growth.<\/p>\n \n\tPD: <\/span><\/strong>We try, for all of our main cohorts, to have a mentorship board that is usually made up of an alumnus of ours, an investor, and some other commercial partner in that industry who can support them and give them access to their networks as well.<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tWe have some coaches who will come in and run workshops on customer development, pitch practice, business modelling, investor readiness and so on. Then we have a huge number of mentors who also give up their own time and will come in and do one-to-ones with them based on their speciality. We also get investors in to do one-to-ones. There are a lot of people who want to get involved, which is one of the reasons we are running a nine-month programme this time, because the previous three-month programme was extremely intensive. <\/p>\n \n\tPD:<\/span><\/strong> It very much depends on whether they\u2019re joining one of our Open Future accelerators – which are more pre-acceleration – or the main Wayra programme. For our pre-accelerator, we will take early-stage companies who have a fully formed idea, but probably not much traction so far. For our main Wayra programme we would invest in the companies and so we are looking for businesses that are more advanced with some level of traction, whether it be trials, investment or customers. <\/p>\n \n\tFor the cyber accelerator, we\u2019re looking at tech companies who have at least a viable product or service, not just an idea or theory. It has to be something that we see as being scalable, and also something that meets the challenges that have been identified by GCHQ & the NCSC, these are available for the companies to look at on our website.<\/p>\n \n\tIn the first cohort we had a company who completely pivoted from their initial idea during the accelerator. We had others that were much more developed and had investment already. <\/p>\n \n\tPD: <\/strong>Basically, they had a product which wasn\u2019t in the cyber sector, and they wanted to see if it would work, but they didn\u2019t really know a huge amount about cyber security, as such. They got really great technical mentoring from GCHQ, they had hours and hours of discussions, and through that they completely pivoted their company. <\/p>\n \n\tThey separated from the original company and created this amazing new start-up – <\/span>Elemendar<\/a>. Their tech is AI that looks at cyber threat reports from analysts and extracts the most important information, turning it into structured information – not what the analysts have put on the front page, but what the AI understands is most relevant to the user. <\/p>\n \n\tPD:<\/span><\/strong> It\u2019s very difficult. That\u2019s why the government\u2019s looking more towards the startup community for help – it\u2019s not something it can do on its own, and the more people who are working towards these challenges the better.<\/p>\n \n\tPD: <\/span><\/strong>Yes – well, we\u2019re part of Telef\u00f3nica, so we are a commercial business not a charity, we ultimately want companies that can support the parent business. In addition, data is hugely important to Telef\u00f3nica – we estimate that 10% of the world\u2019s data flows through our networks, so cyber security is important! From another perspective, though, the startups won\u2019t be successful if they aren\u2019t looking at things commercially.<\/p>\n \n\tPD:<\/span><\/strong> Exactly. GCHQ has so many amazing technical experts that can really support businesses with their development. Telef\u00f3nica has this huge cyber security department who also come in and help them, and then we\u2019ve got access to a huge number of people who can also help them develop their product and put it into reality. Wayra is really good at understanding the commercial benefits and how our customers think, and helping them identify the right markets and customers for their business.<\/p>\n \n\tPD: <\/span><\/strong>Each company will be facing a different challenge at different times, so we try and make the programme as bespoke as it can be, to help them with whatever challenge they\u2019re meeting at that point. <\/p>\n \n\tFor the cyber companies, one of the really good things about having GCHQ on hand, and having access to the Wayra network and all of our contacts, is that they get a great opportunity to check out their product\u2019s market fit and adapt it. If you haven\u2019t proved that your product can integrate well and work in the way you have claimed, then it\u2019s really hard to get anybody to let you have that opportunity.<\/p>\n \n\tPD: <\/span><\/strong>Apply. It\u2019s a great programme. The networks businesses can access and the relationships they\u2019ll make with the other startups will be beneficial for the rest of your company\u2019s life and after. We can help them with access to almost anything they need access to. The access to GCHQ is almost impossible to get without it.<\/p>\n \n\tPD:<\/span><\/strong> I guess the prep would be to work out how their company can be scalable, where they really see their fit in the market and the size of the market. Then the other thing we would look for is the passion of the team – the team is more important than the idea, almost. If you have a really strong team the company will go far. Even if the idea doesn\u2019t work, they\u2019ll make something work.<\/p>\n \n\tPD:<\/span> <\/strong>Cyber security hiring is a huge challenge, not just for startups but for corporations too. There\u2019s a huge skills gap, and as a startup you haven\u2019t got the money that a corporation has to try and attract the best people. For a startup the main value is the vision and the founders. They really have to be passionate – they\u2019re selling themselves to potential hires, almost. If you\u2019re in that position you\u2019re persuading people to take a pay cut because they believe in you and they believe in the business. You get the best people by being someone people want to work for, and most people will stay because they really believe in the company and the founders.<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tFrom high growth startups to established businesses, we\u2019ve got roles suitable for everyone in the cybersecurity and IT sector. Take a look at <\/span>our latest job postings<\/a> to kickstart your new career.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Poppy Dowell is Cyber Security Accelerator Program Manager at Wayra UK- the startup accelerator programme set up by Telef\u00f3nica in 2012. The programme works to help start-ups develop, in part by collaborating with third-party investors and industry specialists – like us. Poppy has kindly agreed to talk about her role in Wayra, the industry hubs… Read More »Interview: Poppy Dowell, Cyber Security Accelerator Manager at Wayra<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-industry-news-trends"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/14386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.identifiglobal.com\/af-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\tIdentifi: Hi Poppy. To start with, we\u2019re interested in finding out a little bit about you and your role in Wayra. What was it that attracted you to Wayra in the first place?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: So, Wayra is aligned with GCHQ who, by nature, are very secretive, and then you have Telef\u00f3nica, who are quite open and actively marketing, eager to make a big noise about the accelerator – how does that balance work?<\/h3>\n
\n\t“It\u2019s definitely been a learning curve for both sides.”<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n\tIdentifi: What\u2019s your role within Wayra, in a nutshell?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: Could you give us the official line about why Wayra exists, and what kind of benefits you give to businesses that come into the accelerator?<\/h3>\n
\n
\n\tIdentifi: What does the Wayra network look like? You\u2019ve mentioned mentoring\u2026<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cdn-01.cms-eu-v2i.applyflow.com\/identifi-global\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Mentor.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n\tIdentifi: How hands-on is the programme at your end? Do people come in with a fully formed business plan, or more of an idea? What level are the businesses at when they apply to the accelerator, and how instrumental you are in shaping them?<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n\t“We\u2019re looking at tech companies who have at least a viable product or service, not just an idea or theory.”<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\n\tIdentifi: The company that changed so radically – did that come out of conversations with their team within the accelerator, or was that part of the business advice you gave them, or did they just decide to do something else?<\/h3>\n
\n
\n\tIdentifi: The cyber sector is so fast moving, isn\u2019t it? The technology changes on an almost weekly basis. If you\u2019re talking about cyber security in particular – how are you supposed to keep up with millions of people creating new tools to hack into sensitive information?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: And you\u2019re attacking this from a commercial perspective?<\/span><\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: There seems to be a lot of rapid development in the cyber security space, but a lot of people leading it come from an academic perspective. Are you coming at the problem from a more commercial angle? <\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: What are the biggest challenges for the startups who come to Wayra – when they\u2019re starting and growing a business?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: If someone was reading this and thinking they\u2019d like to apply for the startup accelerator, what advice would you give them?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: Would they need to do any prep? What do they need to consider before they apply?<\/h3>\n
\n\tIdentifi: Obviously recruiting well is imperative for startups. Have you seen common mistakes – or common positive choices – that people have made while recruiting? <\/h3>\n
\n\tOnce again, we\u2019d like to thank Poppy for discussing her work and the amazing opportunity it offers. <\/p>\n\n\t <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"