About Mark

Mark has a long history of work on security and privacy issues. Opinionated but always willing to learn, Mark is a world renowned speaker, technologist, and nerd. šŸ˜‰

About Mark

Hi, Iā€™m Mark. Thatā€™s me up šŸ‘† there. Iā€™m a forensic scientist, speaker, and technology analyst trying to help you make sense of the digital world and itā€™s impact on us.

For everyday users, my work helps to explain what the challenges of the digital world. Just how big of an impact does using social media have on your privacy? What does it mean when technologies like facial recognition are starting to be used in our communities? I help answer questions like this and more.

For people building technology, I help them to apply a security & privacy lens to their work, so that they can enable users to make clearer decisions about their information and behaviour. There is a mountain of confusion when it comes to privacy & security. There shouldnā€™t be.

I make security & privacy easier to understand.

What does Mark do?

Given my goal (making security & privacy easier to understand) and the audience (everyone and technology builders), my work takes a lot of different shapes. Hopefully you can see that here on the site.

The tl:dr is that I do a lot of public speaking, media interviews, and create a lot of educational content.

While each of those outputs is very different, my approach to each is fundamentally the same. Getting a reasonable technical voice can be difficult. Too often technology folks either go too deep into the weeds or too far off the edge. I aim to strike a happy medium and can explain complex technical topics in common language.

Building on that foundation, I make sure that the message fits the channel itā€™s being published in. Explaining a complex topic in an hour long keynote takes a very different form than a three minute TV segment.

Caveats, gotchas, and a heads up

First things, first. Iā€™m taking less media interviews and less speaking engagements these days. The reason? Itā€™s just not the main focus of my full time role anymore. The work Iā€™m doing day-to-day produces a lot more long form content. Still, if you have something that I might be a good fit for, please reach out.

Secondly, for any engagement. Letā€™s tackle the elephant on the page. Iā€™m a middle-aged, middle class, Canadian, white male. Thereā€™s a lot of white male representation in the community andā€”while I strive to add unique value whenever I support an eventā€”we desperately need more diversity and inclusion within tech.

Any event that I support should be inclusive with diverse representation on and off stage and have a code of conduct that is promoted and enforced. As a result of this, I do my best not to sit on any panel, speak at, or otherwise support events that doesnā€™t live these values.

Still here? Please get in touch if youā€™re interested in having me support your event.

Bio and headshot

I like talking, I just donā€™t like talking about myself! If you need a breakdown of my career path and credentials, my LinkedIn page is the place to go. Of course, the content on this site is a much better representation of what I can deliver.

If you need a headshot for a project Iā€™m helping you with. I have one for promotional use and a lower resolution one for digital.

My ā€œofficialā€ bio is as follows:

Short bio (~40 words)

Mark Nunnikhoven explores the impact of technology through the lens of privacy and security. A Principal with Amazon Security, Mark works with teams and customers to help promote and modernize security practices. Find Mark online at https://markn.ca.

Full bio (~100 words)

Mark Nunnikhoven explores the impact of technology on individuals, organizations, and communities through the lens of privacy and security.

Asking, ā€œHow can we ensure that our technology does what we expect, and only what we expect?ā€, Mark helps organizations around the world navigate the risks of our digital world.

A Principal with Amazon Security, Mark works with teams and customers to help promote and modernize security practices. With a strong focus on automation, he helps bridge the gap between DevOps and traditional security through his writing, speaking, teaching, and engaging with the cloud community.

You can find Mark online @marknca and https://markn.ca.