Bach Ngo Gia

From Hanoi to Adelaide

I was born and raised in Hanoi. I studied information assurance at FPT University, then went to work in a security operations centre — where I learned that security is not a document but a series of decisions under pressure. As a student I was part of AIESEC in Vietnam, my first experience of what a disciplined volunteer organisation looks like from the inside.

Over the following five years at FPT IS I moved to the consulting and audit side: helping organisations build and verify their information-security management systems. Certification as an ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Lead Auditor (2024) marks that chapter.

In 2025 I moved to Adelaide for an MSc in Cyber Security. The same year I took part in Locked Shields — the world's largest live-fire cyber-defence exercise — on Adelaide University's team. Today I study and intern at the university's CyberLab. I want to understand how another country solves the problems Vietnam also faces — data governance, critical-infrastructure protection — and bring back what fits.

How I work

• Specifics before slogans. I trust things with dates and measurable results.
• Explainable to non-specialists. If I cannot say it in plain language, I probably do not understand it well enough yet.
• Build, do not just criticise. When I discuss a problem, I try to state the problem, the options, and the cost of each.

Outside work

I serve on the committee of the Vietnam Student Association in Adelaide, which has taught me more about organising a community than any course. I miss Hanoi most evenings.