In this episode of Ready to Retail, we begin our ‘In Conversation’ series with all the recipients of the Australian of the Year state awards. To kick us off, we are joined by Paul Litherland, winner of the 2022 Western Australian, Australian of the Year. Paul started Surf Online Safe to educate schools on cyber safety and is now recognised as Australia’s leading expert in tech crime. We talk about the biggest misconception around cybercrime and Paul’s top three tips for staying safe online.Paul Litherland spent the last five years of his police career in the Technology Crime Unit. Throughout that time, he took calls from distraught parents whose kids had fallen victim to cybercrime.
Many of those kids were close in age to his own son and Paul found himself developing a deep empathy for their parents. But alongside that was also a growing sense of frustration at the lack of legislation, awareness, and assistance for those affected by cybercrime. Something clearly needed to change and Paul was ready to step up to the challenge.
Rather than fight the system head-on, Paul decided to take the education route and began getting in touch with schools about running cyber safety presentations for their students, parents and teachers.
What he thought would be a part-time gig quickly grew and led to him resigning from the police force to pursue it full time. In 2014, Paul founded Surf Online Safe and has since spoken at over 600 schools in the last eight years. He’s now recognised as Australia’s leading expert in cyber safety.
“It’s not until something goes seriously wrong - whether it’s being groomed, hacked or scammed - that you realise how poorly you’re protected online,” Paul says. “A lack of awareness and protection can cause people to be blasé with their risk-taking and makes them prone to being victims of cybercrime.”The Australian of the Year Award recognises Australians who have made significant contributions and created positive change.
For over 212 years, Australia Post has been at the heart of Australian communities, connecting them with each other and the world. Beyond parcels, letters and services we're also connecting people through stories of hope, resilience and community service. We’re thrilled to recognise the incredible Australian of the Year Award state and territory recipients who make such a profound contribution to their communities and the nation.
We’re proud to support these awards and to share these inspiring stories with you and we’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate the state and territory award recipients. In this Australian of the year series, we had the opportunity to be in conversation with each of the state and territory award recipients.
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