Q-PrEP’s first on-site workshop, on the 5th of February in Athens

At the National Centre for Scientific Research (NCSR) “Demokritos” in Athens and under the auspices of the National Cybersecurity Authority (NCSA) Greece, our project Q-PrEP brought together more than 30 speakers & experts to present & discuss the latest state of quantum-safe communication & IT, with a clear focus on post-quantum cryptography (PQC) – as the most mature & practical approach to tackle the challenge by upcoming cryptographically relevant quantum computing (CRQC).

The event opened by Michail Bletsas (NCSA Governor, GR) and Dimitrios Angelakis (Science Director of the QCQTI, NCSR, GR), welcome addresses by George Nounesis (chair National Council of Research, Technology & Innovation, GR) and Emmanuel Floratos (Ordinary Member Academy of Athens, GR) initiated the workshop, before handing over to Juraj Kubica (Directorate-General Communications Networks, Content and Technology, EC) to present his directorate’s view on Europe’s state in quantum-safety. Delving deeper into the topic, Ludovic Perret (Univ. Paris Sorbonne & EPITA, FR) and Christoph Striecks (Austrian Institute of Technology, AUT) shared the expert talk on cybersecurity, on the challenges of the migration to PQC.

After a short break, Ilias Papastamatiou (HellasQCI, GR) put the local and international activities of the Greek national initiative into the context of the European efforts to make the continent quantum-safe, followed by the joint presentation on uses cases of PQC & QKD safeguarded communications & IT in the public sector contexts of health and the monetary system: Homer Papadopoulos (HellasQCI, GR) showcased the quantum-safe communication between the NCSR and the university hospital in Athens while Max Grytz (Deutsche Bundesbank, GER) informed the audience about connecting data centers using QKD at the German central bank.
Representing EUropean PQC projects, Heike Hagemeier (BSI, GER) spoke about the latest state of the European Workstream on PQC and Gianluca Lepore (Banca d’Italia, IT) showed results from the 2nd phase of Project Leap, to harden payments by means of PQC.
We, as project team Q-PrEP ended this session with a short recap of our project before the lunch break that was intensively used for networking – probably the most important aspect of the whole event.

“Refueled” for the afternoon session, the workshop continued with the first panel on “Why Cybersecurity Agencies should mind PQC? What are the challenges?”, moderated by Adrian Neal (Capgemini, UK). Available for his and the audience’s questions were Yiannis Pavlosoglou (NCSA, GR), Inga Paul (BSI, GER), Jan Rada (NUKIB, CZ), Polyvios Hadjiyiangou (ECCC, EU), and Prokopios Drogkaris (ENISA, EU), agreeing on many aspects of PQC but also showing refreshing differences of opinion in the details how PQC migration should work best.
Guided by moderator Julian van Velzen (Capgemini, NL) through the perspectives of the private sector, being providers of PQC & cybersecurity solutions to the public sector, Suvi Lampila (SSH, FIN), Tobias Handirk (genua, GER), Jaochim Vererfven (Proximus, BE), and Christian Fischer (NKCS, GER) we had a look at “the other side of the table”, in the panel “(Infrastructure) Providers: How to handle public entity requirements on PQC?”.
Last but definitely not least, the panel “PQC: Integrating quantum-safe communication in the public domain” handed over the microphone to moderator Mathias Schumacher (NMWP, GER) who collected the views & assessments of Albert de Ruiter (Logius, NL), Kristof Verslype (Smals, BE), Pieter Schneider (MinBZ, NL), Vasileios Rentoumis (Deutsche Bundesbank, GER), and Vasileios Alexiou (Hellenic Parliament, GR) on the levels of realization of PQC migration in the public sector Europe-wide.

The recap & announcements, summarizing the topics presented and thanking the participants for their interest & engagement, had a surprise to give: our dear Q-PrEP member and strong supporter from the early days of the project, Pieter Schneider, announced his institution, the Dutch ministry of the interior, to become the host of Q-PrEP’s 2nd on-site workshop, taking place in September this year in The Hague.

So, if you missed the chance to engage & exchange with the Q-PrEP community & experts in Athens, stay tuned for more details (date, venue, and agenda) of workshop no. 2.

Looking forward to see you all in The Hague,
Your Q-PrEP project team