Interview with Ian Ralph Myra Systems Gold Sponsor

[Music] Hi everyone, I'm Steve, volunteer director at large with the Vancouver Island Security Research Society, the team behind the annual Bides Vancouver Island Security Conference. Our grassroots communitydriven event returns this year on October 3rd at the Victoria Conference Center. We're excited to bring together cyber security experts, enthusiasts, and students from across the island. Today I want to recognize one of our valued partners, Myra Systems, our gold sponsor for 2025. This marks their second year sponsoring Besides Vancouver Island. Myra systems has been a trusted leader in IT consulting and managed services in BC, known for helping businesses and organizations build secure, efficient technology environments. I'm joined now by Ian Ralph, director of sales and marketing at Myra. Ian, welcome. would

you kindly introduce yourself and share a bit with us about Myra, its involvement in the community and why community engagement is important to your team. >> Hi Stephen, it's great to be here. Thanks for having us. Well, at Myra, we've been proudly headquartered here in Victoria since 1985, 40 years now. And our roots here in Vancouver Island run deep. We also like to think we're not just a technology company, that we're a community partner. And one of our missions is to help organizations thrive through secure and scalable IT solutions. But we also believe in supporting the community that supports us and where we work. Over the years, we've supported a lot of different local initiatives from the Victoria Christmas

Spirit Dinner, the Mustard Seed Foundation, BC Cancer Foundation, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Victoria Hospitals Foundation, and lots more. We really believe strongly in the community. We're pretty active in the tech ecosystem here locally as well. Uh we just recently had a great event with the MISA BC conference. That's for local municipal IT organizations and governments. Try to stay ahead of the IT trends and the bad guys out there. And we're also proud member of Viotech. Um supporting innovation and entrepreneurship all throughout greater Victoria. Part of that's because we like to think we don't just work here, we live here. And so we definitely prioritize clients and projects that serve our kind of friends in the

municipality in the district, the indigenous communities here on the island and uh and and everyone in between. >> Thank you very much, Ian. To deepen the conversation about why Myra sponsors Bside Vancouver Island, here's a few questions I'd like to ask. First, how does sponsoring Bides Vancouver Island align with Myra systems values around community and technology leadership? >> It's a good question. Bides fits right into Demyra's sort of ethos. Um, it's a really good fit for us. It's a grassroots organization. It's passionate. It's all about knowledge sharing. And that's exactly how we'd like to operate, too. We look at cyber security is more than just a security or technical challenge. It's a community responsibility. Events that are like

bides help everyone get a shared understanding and it's a great thing for us to support. We we we love it. also think that Bides is great because it supports and elevates local voices and gives folks a chance in a stage who may not otherwise uh be featured in the the larger multinational conferences. So for our team, we've got a good group of security experts here certified Microsoft forinet HP scale all sorts of big technologies. Um but we're always looking to mentor and collaborate with uh people right in our backyard. So sponsoring Bides is a really great way for us to say we're here, we're invested, and we're interested in building a safer digital future for

everyone. >> Thank you very much. We definitely appreciate your support. Second question, what does Myra Systems look for in partnerships, especially with grassroot events like ours? >> We look for a few things. We look for authenticity. Number one, we look for alignment and we look for impact. I think that grassroots events like Bides really bring people together who care deeply about cyber security um not just as a profession usually but as a as a a personal passion and and a public good and that really resonates with us being here on the island for a long time and growing up here on the island we've built long-term relationships with the municipalities with tourism operators the indigenous communities and we do

that because whether we're deploying voiceover IP systems whether we're working on migrating cloud infrastructure or whether we're just trying to help somebody stay safe, keep their jobs and keep their company safe. We find that it's a great place to a great way to to collaborate respectfully in a communitydriven kind of way. >> Finally, last question. Can you share a story where participating in community events like BIDES created value for Myra, its clients or the broader cyber security uh community? >> Absolutely. I can tell you a story uh from Bides last year. Our presence and our sponsorship there last year led to a conversation with a well unnamed regional uh sort of IT manager. Um and

they were struggling with some Microsoft 365 configuration and security stuff without going too far down the the rabbit hole of technology. A chat with them ended up turning into a full assessment engagement and through that we deployed a security scan, found a number of areas where they needed to strengthen things, strengthen some of their fishing resistant email policies and MFA and put in some conditional access policies. And so that conversation for us wasn't just a win for Myra getting a new client. I think it was a win for the district and a win for our community. um that district's now more secure and we've expanded the some of those security offerings to a number of other municipalities based on

the introductions from that very happy IT manager. So besides leads directly to conversations for us that we think strengthen the community in more ways than one. >> Thank you very much Ian. That's a wonderful story to hear and uh that's definitely why Bides is around. Before we sign off, be sure to visit bsidesvi.com to get your ticket for this essential cyber security gathering. The full conference agenda is now posted on our website. So you can plan your day full of insightful talks and networking opportunities. We are also active on all the major social media platforms. Head to our website for links and don't forget to join the conversation using #besides vi. Be sure to check out myra system

during the conference and feel free to say thanks to their crew for keeping our local cyber security strong. Thank you for watching and we can't wait to see you at the Victoria Conference Center on October 3rd. You'll never work at Hollywood again. >> Excellent.