Sam is an IT Director and consultant with experience in K–12 education, corporate training, and telecommunications. He spent over ten years living and working in Bush Alaska, visiting 97 small towns and villages across the state, 3 years in China, and now resides in southern Florida with his wife and two boys. He is certified in a number of technology and vendor platforms/skills, but has focused more on cybersecurity in the last 3 years. He is passionate about privacy, data protection, and cybersecurity… especially when it comes to our youth. MakeITSecure is a consultant company that helps schools harden their systems when schools can’t afford a full time CISO.

• What it was like being a teacher in Bush Alaska.
• Why are schools not doing more to protect their students, staff and data?
• MakeITSecure
• How to make security a priority.
• You can’t just have IT be the only ones thinking about security, because all issues are security related.
• What should we spend money on in schools?
• Risk management equation.
• Where you should put your schools’ money when it comes to security
• What’s your goal? What are you trying to accomplish with that security program?
• Sit down and evaluate your risk and try to fill your gaps.
• Low-hanging fruit to reduce your risk.
• Information audit - what are the states of their policies and procedures.
• Repository of templates within a consortium so you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
• Free software comes with a cost.
• There are ways to make anything safer.
• Transparent, honest communication.
• Just enough, just in time, just for me.
• Comparing your roles as an IT Director for schools in the US or Program Director for a US telecom, how would you describe social media, the internet, and digital trends in China -
• As a consumer it was a healthy experience.
• Serious seeds of doubt or a complete misunderstanding of it.
• Connection of Social Credit Score and our current situation.

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