- OTMEC has launched as a regional initiative aimed at improving ICS and OT cybersecurity across the Middle East and North Africa
- OTMEC’s goal is to provide a space for OT and ICS specialists to share practical knowledge
- OTMEC’s leadership said the rise of AI-enabled monitoring, predictive maintenance and digital twins brings new considerations
The Operational Technology Middle East Community (OTMEC) has launched as a regional initiative aimed at improving ICS and OT cybersecurity across the Middle East and North Africa.
The group, co-founded by Reem Faraj AlShammari, Bryson Bort, Thomas VanNorman, Saltanat Mashirova and Michael Hoffman, brings together operators, vendors, regulators and security professionals in a vendor-neutral setting. Its advisory board includes Robert M. Lee and Tim Conway.
OTMEC’s goal is to provide a space for OT and ICS specialists to share practical knowledge, develop the workforce and promote stronger collaboration around the protection of critical infrastructure.
Leaders of the initiative told Industrial Cyber that the region had long faced fragmented knowledge-sharing, a lack of mentorship for OT professionals and limited coordination across critical sectors. They said digital transformation had been accelerating faster than security maturity, leaving organisations without a unified community to exchange lessons learned.
Backed by its co-founders, ICS Village and Women in CyberSecurity Middle East (WiCSME), OTMEC aims to position the region as a contributor to global industrial cybersecurity progress.
The leadership said: “Our long-term mandate extends beyond geography. Inspired by WiCSME’s global growth, OTMEC is building a five-year blueprint for how an OT community should operate globally, creating opportunity, shaping best practices, and raising awareness around the world.”
They noted that the Middle East faces a combination of industrial growth, fast-paced digital change and heightened geopolitical risk, making OT and ICS security a critical priority. Challenges typically include ageing and varied industrial systems that are difficult to secure, rapid IT/OT convergence that expands the attack surface, and a shortage of experienced OT cybersecurity professionals.
The region also contends with siloed approaches among operators and regulators, limited mentorship opportunities and uneven awareness of OT risks at senior levels.
While emerging technologies are not the primary cause of today’s issues, OTMEC’s leadership said the rise of AI-enabled monitoring, predictive maintenance and digital twins brings new considerations around ‘data integrity, system trust boundaries, and operational validation.’ They added: “OTMEC incorporates these developments into its dialogues and workforce initiatives to ensure organisations are future-ready. By aligning practitioners and decision-makers around shared challenges and solutions, OTMEC aims to elevate regional OT readiness, strengthen competency, and enhance industrial resilience across the Middle East.”
The initiative has been designed as a collaborative hub offering open membership to practitioners, operators, vendors, regulators and academia.
Its activities include technical workshops and hands-on training with support from ICS Village, partnerships with regional cybersecurity events such as BlackHat MEA, and online channels for ongoing cross-border discussion.
It also features mentorship programmes modelled on WiCSME to support early-career professionals, community-driven working groups and engagement with national cyber authorities on policy development.
OTMEC plans to measure its impact through community participation, workforce development indicators, training outcomes and evidence that member organisations are applying shared best practices.
Engagement from regulators and improved preparedness among operators will also serve as benchmarks. As the leadership put it: “Ultimately, OTMEC’s success will be measured by whether our community strengthens industrial resilience, reduces operational risk, and advances regional and global standards for OT security. We want to evolve from a regional hub into a globally connected OT community shaping the future of industrial cybersecurity worldwide.”
