Josh Gold: a second-generation Canadian Estonian

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‘Both Jews and Estonians have suffered a lot. This has given us a common understanding of the value of the kind of life we have in Canada, where we have grown up. I have never had to overcome anything very hard, but I am aware of what my Jewish and Estonian ancestors have had to go through. It has perhaps made me understand the value of being who we are.’

Josh Gold is a cyber security policy expert born in Toronto in 1996, a second-generation Estonian on his mother’s side and a Jewish Canadian on his father’s side. Josh, or Juku as Estonians call him, has a BA from the University of Toronto, where he studied Peace and Conflict Studies and European Studies. His thesis focused on cyber security, examining the cyber attacks in Estonia in 2007 and the resulting developments in cyber security.

Juku has also lived in Estonia for a short time: he had a summer internship at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn, which was the starting point for his work in the field of cyber defence and cyber policy. Since then, Juku has been involved in various research projects on cyber defence, cyber diplomacy, cyber conflict, Internet governance, and similar topics both at the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto and as a consultant at the Digital and Cyber Policy Department of the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, focusing on UN cyber issues.

He has also been active in the Canadian and global Estonian community, and is currently a management board member of the Estonian Central Council in Canada, as well as the NGO Global Estonian Youth Network. Juku is a member of the Toronto chapter of the corporation Rotalia. Juku has also represented the Estonian national team at the 2018 European Championships in swimming.

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