This six-month project initiative aims to empower girls (KS4/College) across North-East England by equipping them with essential ethical hacking and cybersecurity skills. Women make up only 17% of the UK's cybersecurity workforce, with just 12% holding senior roles. The project responds directly to two critical regional challenges: the shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals and the underrepresentation of women in the technology and cybersecurity workforce. Through hands-on training and guided mentorship, the initiative seeks to foster a more inclusive, capable, and resilient future talent pipeline. In many parts of North-East, access to specialised cybersecurity education remains limited, particularly within school settings. Simultaneously, persistent gender gaps in STEM fields -- especially in technology---mean that young women often lack both role models and clear entry points into the sector. This initiative tackles these barriers by offering practical, engaging workshops that build technical skills, increase confidence, and spark interest in cybersecurity careers among girls who may not otherwise have considered them. The project will be led by Northumbria University's Cyber Clinic, in collaboration with the North East Business Resilience Centre (NEBRC). The Cyber Clinic has a strong track record in providing ethical hacking education to university students, and this initiative will expand its reach to younger learners. Ten undergraduate cyber clinic students will be selected and trained to act as mentors and workshop leaders. Each student will dedicate eight hours weekly to preparing and delivering training sessions. The programme will run three intensive eight-week courses, delivered in a hybrid format combining both in-person and online teaching. This flexible approach ensures the programme is accessible to students across urban, rural, and coastal communities. Workshop content will include phishing attack simulations, penetration testing, vulnerability detection, secure coding, open-source intelligence (OSINT), incident response, and Wi-Fi/network security. Course materials will be adapted from the Cisco Ethical Hacker curriculum, and students will have the option to pursue Cisco certification, as Northumbria is a Cisco NetAcademy. To further develop their skills, participants will engage in Capture-the-Flag (CTF) challenges---interactive, team-based competitions that simulate real-world cyber defence scenarios. CyberNorth, the region's leading cybersecurity cluster, will support school engagement through its extensive network. NEBRC will contribute expertise and outreach capacity, while industry partner Cystel will provide real-world insights and ensure content remains aligned with the latest cybersecurity practices. By the end of the initiative, more than 150 girls (KS4/College) will receive hands-on cybersecurity training and career exposure -- helping to boost regional resilience.

New security technologies based on quantum physics require work to ensure consistency and quality of the technology. The aim of this project is to establish a methodology for the assurance of quantum systems. Assurance enables trust in the performance of the technology, and ensures that technology meets requirements. Assurance is therefore essential when technology is used in critical systems, such as within health, the financial sector, or any service that people rely on. Assurance of the reliability and security of new computing and network technologies is an established area of research and expertise, but it needs to be updated to support the new quantum technologies. This requires building understanding between the cybersecurity sector, and the technologists and quantum cryptography researchers involved in building these new solutions. This initiative unites UK Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) vendors Toshiba Research Europe and KETS Quantum, telecom operators (BT), National Physical Laboratory (NPL) experts specialising in quantum device testing and assurance, as well as traditional cybersecurity experts. Additionally, it draws upon the system engineering proficiency from the University of Loughborough, along with the expertise in modelling and verifying quantum and hybrid systems from NodeQ, Kings College London and Quentangle. End user HSBC provides insights into the real world cybersecurity requirements of a large financial organisation. Innovative aspects include trialling the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to build confidence in the models (such as models of attack), and comparing the insights with those obtained from a traditional review of the models by an expert team. This collaborative effort aims to seamlessly integrate quantum cryptography with practical cybersecurity, establishing a robust assurance framework tailored for UK QKD systems, in alignment with modern methods of assurance.