The ECSO Cyber Solution Days event has wrapped up, marking a remarkable presentation of Europe’s top cybersecurity scale-ups and their innovative solutions in Identity & Access Management and Cloud Security. Held on 25 September 2024 as a precursor to the Cyber Ireland National Conference 2024 in Kilkenny, Ireland, this event was organised in partnership with Women4Cyber and Cyber Ireland. After a compelling competition featuring six of Europe’s most promising scale-ups, an expert panel of European Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) has selected CalQRisk and CyberDesk as the finalists. These standout solutions will advance to the ultimate challenge: the ECSO CISO Choice Award, set for early next year.
The ECSO Cyber Solution Days were designed to bridge the gap between cybersecurity providers and buyers, providing a tailored setting for CISOs and corporate leaders to connect with top European cybersecurity innovators and discover the newest European cybersecurity solutions on the market. This initiative seeks to bridge the gap between cybersecurity providers and buyers in Europe, creating opportunities for collaboration and entry of new solutions onto the European market. This edition highlighted cutting-edge solutions in Identity & Access Management and Cloud Security, offering a platform for European scale-ups to showcase their innovations.
On 25 September, after a dynamic day filled with insightful panel discussions, keynote speeches, and, most notably, thrilling pitching sessions, the judging panel composed of European CISOs has completed its deliberations. Among the competitors, Gerard Joyce from CalQRisk and Dr. Tobias Lieberum from CyberDesk delivered the most compelling pitches, and were ultimately selected as the two scale-ups with the most promising cybersecurity solutions for Europe! These finalists will now proceed to the ultimate competition: the ECSO CISO Choice Award 2025, set to take place during the ECSO Award Finals early next year.
“I was pleased to be given the opportunity to present in the first place, and delighted to win. We want to go European, we want to get off the Island, as we say. Even if we didn’t win today, just having this networking opportunity is great! I am hoping this is the first step in going European.”
Gerard Joyce, CTO at CalQRisk
“The event that ECSO, Cyber Ireland and Women4Cyber have set up here is absolutely stunning: dozens of practitioners coming together with some of the coolest companies from all over Europe that are building really innovative solutions. And that is really what was motivating for me. We built our start-up for the practitioners, to make the life of the people in the trenches easier. And getting immediate feedback from these practitioners at this event was really really valuable.”
Dr. Tobias Lieberum, Founder & CEO at CyberDesk
Congratulations to all participants: CalQRisk, CyberDesk, Threatscape, Trout, Sedicii and CounterCraft!
We wish the best of luck to CalQRisk and CyberDesk as they advance to the final stage of the competition. The ECSO CISO Choice Award 2025 will undoubtedly be a highlight as these promising solutions vie for recognition as Europe’s top cybersecurity innovations.
About the ECSO CISO Choice Award
The ECSO CISO Choice Award is a new award category, being distributed for the second time at the 2025 year’s ceremony. It aims to recognise and celebrate the most innovative European cybersecurity solution of the year. The competition features larger European cybersecurity companies with existing investments and solutions that are looking for an opportunity to access the market by presenting their innovations in front of an international audience of potential buyers.
This year’s finalists will be selected throughout 2024 by expert Judging Panels from ECSO’s Cyber Solution Days and the European Cybersecurity Competence Centre’s (ECCC) Access-2-Market Matchmaking Events.
At the 2025 ECSO CISO Choice Award, the selected finalists will present their most compelling pitches. Their presentations will be carefully evaluated by an expert Judging Panel comprised of European CISOs who, at the end of the day, will select the company with the most promising and innovative cybersecurity solution for Europe as a winner.
This is the perfect opportunity for European CISO’s and end-users to meet and connect with fellow cybersecurity leaders from all over Europe, as well as to gain direct access to the hottest European solutions on the market, presented by the experts themselves.
