Honorary Professor UQAM, Fellow, Institut d’Études Internationales de Montréal
Honorary Professor UQAM, Fellow, Institut d’Études Internationales de Montréal
Professor Charron was awarded a Japan Foundation fellowship in 2017, during which time he conducted interviews in the field, mainly in Tokyo, from October 26 to November 24.
This fieldwork provided me with a wonderful opportunity to meet with key scholars working in this field, and key actors from the private sector and some of the government agencies involved, up to the Cabinet Secretariat, to METI, the Japan Cybercrime Control Centre, the Crisis & Risk Management Society, and with the new Chief Information Security Officer for the Tokyo Olympics, discussing among others the Declaration on the Cyberspace adopted at the 2016 Ise-Shima G-7 Summit, and new challenges and opportunities ahead, from the cyberattack against Sony to potential attacks during the next Olympics.
[A favourite memory from Japan was] the quality of the support from my advisor, Dr. MIYAO Takahiro, Professor Emeritus, University of Tsukuba, who joined me for all my interviews, in universities, in the private sector and the government agencies.
Professor Charron names his Japan Foundation fellowship as a “turning point” in his career. He was recognized in May 2019 by the Japanese government with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays and Neck Ribbon, for his contribution in promoting academic exchange and mutual understanding between Japan and Canada.
I have continued to work, with my research group, on new challenges and opportunities ahead in Cyberdiplomacy and Cybersecurity, and the importance of bilateral and multilateral cooperation in these new fields. In 2012, with the UK Olympics, there were over 200 million cyber-attacks, with older information technologies, emerging Artificial Intelligence and an emerging Internet of Things. How many might there be, during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, with a much more mature generation of IT, AI and IoT?
Learn more about Professor Charron from this interview at the Consulate General of Japan in Montreal on the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and Japan: “Le Japon, le Canada et moi.”
