Overview

Sarah Tatsis is the VP, Advanced Technology Development Labs at BlackBerry. Sarah and her team of engineers are responsible for taking new technologies from ideation, to incubation, to delivery into BlackBerry products and for helping BlackBerry stay on the cutting edge of security innovation. Over the past year, Sarah has led a number of initiatives designed to make a difference in the security community and society at large.
In November, Sarah announced BlackBerry was teaming up with Girl Guides of Canada (GGC) to launch cybersecurity skills-based programming for GGC’s 70,000 members.
Designed to provide girls with the necessary skill-set to spark early interest in the cybersecurity industry, the Digital Defenders’ program encourages girls to take a “how stuff works” approach to cybersecurity. As a former Girl Guide herself, Sarah knows first-hand how simple exposure to something can spark a lifelong interest and passion. For a period of six months, Sarah and a handful of women from across BlackBerry worked diligently with GGC to develop content to arm girls with the relevant skills to navigate their world today and in the future. By empowering girls to navigate the digital world they live in and how to protect themselves from cyber threats, Sarah and BlackBerry aimed to give girls the kind of cyber savvy skills they might not be able to get anywhere else.
Sarah’s team was also called on by the Government of Canada to conduct a comprehensive security audit of the recently released COVID Alert exposure notification app. The new app is designed to assist public health authorities in their efforts to fight COVID-19 by enabling exposure notifications.

In BlackBerry’s role as security consultant, Sarah’ team, together with BlackBerry’s Global Services Technical Operations team, undertook a comprehensive review of all possible security vulnerabilities along with the solution’s overall architecture to ensure it met all privacy requirements.

BlackBerry’s involvement in this project is just one of many ways that the company is contributing to the fight against COVID-19. Sarah is extremely proud of these efforts thus far, and it’s a testament to her and the company’s values and desire to make a social impact.