Last week I was in one of three Oxford teams which traveled to the Geneva Center for Security Policy last week to take part in a cyber policy competition against 21 other teams from around the world. Each team was sent an intelligence brief before the competition, from which they had to prepare a briefing outlining their policy suggestions to an assembled task force. The exercise was an attempt to simulate challenges that face decision makers during a crisis. The competition was tough, with colonels and diplomats heading up teams from military academies and schools of governance and policy. After seeing how seriously the other teams were, our own delegation (coached by the first professor we could grab on the afternoon of the deadline) seemed lackluster in comparison.
After each presentation, teams had to answer questions from the judges before being scored for the round. Two of our teams managed to rank high enough and made it through to the second round on day two, whilst the third was left to enjoy Geneva in the sunshine. While they were catching up on sleep, the advancing teams were given a new briefing at 20:00, asked to prepare a new presentation. The catch was that instead of having two weeks to prepare a new briefing, this time we had until 07:00 the next morning. Cue a long night trying to prepare a set of policy alternatives that would get us through to the final on Friday afternoon.
Unfortunately neither of the qualifying Oxford teams made it through to the final, which was eventually won by the home team from the Geneva Center for Security Policy. One thing that we we missing was a strong media strategy across the board. As one of the judges rightly pointed out - media isn't optional in a crisis situation. Secondly, teamwork is key; teams going into Cyber 9/12 that hadn't worked together before were at a serious disadvantage when the going got tough. Another strategy the winning teams employed was drawing a clear line between policies which considered the unfolding events a criminal incident, and those that escalated it to a matter of national security.
Overall the event was really insightful, and I'm glad I made the most of the opportunities I had around the presentations and keynotes to ask the assembled experts how best to become more involved in the policy sphere. We'll be back in Geneva next year for certain, and maybe then we can bring the trophy home to Oxford.
