ALAMOSA – Adams State University welcomes to campus Colorado European Union Center of Excellence at University of Colorado, Boulder fellow Folkert Wilman, Ph.D., for a guest lecture. He will be on the ASU campus all day Wednesday, Oct. 24. He will visit a number of classes during the day and will provide a free lecture, “Cyber-challenges: Europe’s perspective on how to protect ourselves when virtually everyone and everything is connected,” begins at 7 p.m. in McDaniel Hall 101. The event is free and open to the public.

Our cars, our hospitals, our money, our elections, our children – almost everything we value most dearly is nowadays dependent on or connected to the Internet. This brings great advantages. But it is becoming increasingly clear that it can also involve great risks. Fraudsters, terrorists and hostile foreign governments all pursue activities online, and they are often good at it too. Not surprisingly, whilst cybersecurity and measures to counter illegal content online used to be dealt with by specialists only, they are now headline material – not only in the US but in Europe as well. This presentation explains how the European Union tries to address these “cyber-challenges.”

Adams State is in partnership with the University of Colorado-Boulder and their Colorado European Union Center (CEUC). The Center’s goal is to connect the Western United States to the European Union through educators, research, students, businesses and the general public. The Boulder campus program focuses on teaching and research related to the European Union and Transatlantic Relations. The Center awards grants, offers courses, study abroad opportunities, internships and research opportunities. The center also provides workshops, symposia and lectures outside of the university’s campus.

Wilman, a scholar from Norway and active educator of the CEUC, has his bachelor’s and master’s in European Union and International Law, which he received from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. He also holds a doctorate in European Union Law from Leiden University, The Netherlands. He began his law career with an internship at a major Dutch Law Firm, Houthoff Buruma, where he soon became an Attorney at Law. He worked with this firm for several years before his current position as a Member of the Legal Service for the European Commission, Brussels, Belgium.