The Main Planning Conference (MPC) Meeting, hosted in preparation for the European Cybersecurity Challenge (ECSC) 2024, which will be held in Turin, Italy, Oct. 7-11, was held last June 11 and 12 in Turin at the headquarters of Reply, the Diamond Sponsor of ECSC2024.

The European Cybersecurity Challenge 2024 will be jointly organised by the Italian National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) and the Cybersecurity National Lab, supported by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA).

The meeting, which saw the participation of representatives of more than 20 member countries of the ECSC Steering Committee, from ENISA, ACN, CINI Cybersecurity National Lab, and partners from Reply was once again an opportunity to meet and discuss to finalise the last details for this edition of the European competition and the guidelines for the following years.

After the welcome from Reply, who presented their involvement in the event as industry leaders, the meeting began with a presentation of Gaspare Ferraro, co-chair of ECSC2024, relating to the organisation of this edition announcing that with 30 official nations participating, and several guest countries, ECSC2024 will be the biggest edition ever, and of Gabriella Caramagno, logistic chair, with information relating to the organisation and spaces of the OGR - Officine Grandi Riparazioni, which will host the event.

The day saw a series of interventions, moderated by Adrian Belmonte, Cybersecurity Expert of the Capacity Building Unit of ENISA, about the ECSC2024 planning status, the speech of Matteo Rossi and Giulia Martino, co-chairs of the scientific unit, with information regarding the competitions rules and from Gianluca Altomani, chair of the technical unit of competitions with information on infrastructure, in-game competition management and platforms.

The first day ended with a presentation by Luca Nicoletti, Director of the Industrial, technological, research and training programmes service of ACN, Ludovica Coletta, and Danilo D'Elia about the NCC matchmaking event that will be held in parallel during ECSC2024.

In the afternoon, the representatives of the nations had the opportunity to visit the OGR, the venue of ECSC2024, to view the spaces and competition rooms.

The second day began with a visit to Reply Area42, a laboratory for experimenting and transforming creative ideas into reality. It utilises the potential of the most cutting-edge technology in robotics, advanced mobility, and virtual reality.

The day continued with several presentations by the ECSC executive committee on international topics and Ioannis Agrafiotis (ENISA) on Team Europe, the European cybersecurity team that will participate in the third edition of the International Cybersecurity Challenge to be held in Santiago de Chile next October.

The MPC Meeting concluded with a last presentation from Gaspare Ferraro, which updated about the third three rounds of openECSC 2024, which have seen the participation of 3.500 registered participants from more than 140 countries worldwide, five times more than players who attended openECSC in 2023.

The next appointment is set for October in Turin, with all participants competing in the European Cybersecurity Challenge!

All the photos of the meeting are available in the gallery.