Dr. Sandro Gaycken is a technology researcher, researching the connection of technology and politics at the Freie Universität Berlin, Institute of Computer Science, with a main focus on privacy, Internet freedom, information technology and cybersecurity and its impact on modern warfare, intelligence and foreign affairs.
Sandro has published more than 60 scientific contributions in international books and journals, regularly writes op-eds in leading newspapers and has authored official government publications. He was appointed director in NATO’s SPS program on national cyber strategies, the director of the cybersecurity working group and associate fellow of the German Council on Foreign Relations, an associate fellow of Oxford’s Martin College, a senior fellow at EastWest Institute, and a member of the working group on cyber defence and cyber intelligence at Oxford University’s Global Cyber Security Capacity Building Center.
He served as a strategist in the design of the German Foreign and Security Policy on IT-matters. He also served as a commentator for Germany’s position in the UN GGE work on international cybersecurity and was the first expert to address the UNO general assembly ambassadors in New York in their inaugural session on international cyber peace. He has testified as a subject matter expert in many hearings in the Bundestag and a range of ministries, provided strategic advice to the UNO, NATO, the G8, the EU, the IAEA, and a few governments.
Sandro also consults medium and major companies in the fields of IT, IT-sec and defense, serves as a leading advisor in one of the largest security funds and authored seven major industry studies on strategic economic research and development in cybersecurity and cyber defence. Sandro gives many public talks and takes pride in writing not only hard science, but also popular science books and articles. He appears as a regular commentator on IT-related incidents for major news outlets.