And Onto Another Chapter for Zonefox

One of the most wonderful things about being a professor is that I meet people with vision, passion, and drive. These are people who want to make a difference and are people who do not settle for the existing ways of doing things. I thus get a chance to support early stage developments, and then to observe innovative companies being formed, and see them taking on large companies, and winning. For me, I love seeing small and innovative businesses winning over large and cumbersome businesses.

And so, yesterday, Zonefox — our first spin-out company — was acquired by Fortinet, and I wish them all the best for the future. For them it is another chapter in their development towards a world-leading product. For me, I see the great people that have built up the company from scratch. I’ve seen how a seed of an idea in Dr Jamie Graves’ head has led to something that truly addresses fundamental cyber security challenges [news]:

The company was formed in the university on the back of Jamie’s PhD research work, and where he strove for methods which made cyber security more of a scientific and less of a dark art. Jamie could just not understand why the opinion of a single expert could be seen as a…