Sep 8, 2026 · 46 min · 10 segments
At just 24 years old, Aidan Britnell left a career in cybersecurity to build technology that serves the local church. In this episode of The Sowers Podcast, Aidan shares his testimony of growing up in…
Aidan BritnellGuest
Matt NaismithHost
I mean, the stats now on how much data is generated every day, publishing that saved is just like growing at an exponential rate.
One of the interesting things we say in cybersecurity is there are two types of companies, those companies who've been hacked, and the companies who will be hacked again.
And so it's just such a huge risk and need in our day, even for churches, you know, who probably don't have full-time IT staff, don't have a lot of full-time IT competency that's on their team that's looking out for this stuff.
And so that's something I'm super passionate about as well, as the risks and the attacks, especially against nonprofits and churches, are just increasing every day.
Well, the reason I bring it up is because the stat that I had heard is that data is one of the most valuable commodities on the planet.
When people think about investments or things that you can generate money off of, gold, oil, things of this nature, clean energy in the future, data... is one of the most valuable commodities.
I think the biggest thing is because it's so personal, right? The amount of data that our devices are collecting and because we're using our devices for everything from health data, you know, your watches, your phones, collecting your steps, your heart rate, you know, all sorts of health data to, I mean, literally everything to do with your personal life, emails, work, texts.
I think it's valuable because it's so personal and, you know, with technology being such a big part of our life, it's such a big part of our you can say digital footprint, our life, it's everywhere.
It's like every interaction that we're doing and most of our interactions with other people as well getting captured that way.
There's so many implications when it comes to the security of that data because it's getting stored in so many different places.
You think of the amount of accounts that you would have, all the different places that are storing your data from your phone to your email account, to your services for all these different things.
And so this only keeps going, right? Like every day, every month, you're signing up for new things, new services.
Well, it's an aspect and then it becomes a way for companies to know how to market towards us, right? That's where the value of this data comes in.
Yes, it's information about our personal selves, but it's what that personal self information then does.
Like when you go onto Amazon or when you're on social media and suddenly an ad is appearing out based on something that you've been talking about recently or a way that you've been engaging, that's based on data that's been in some sense collected from your engagement.
I mean, the stats now on how much data is generated every day, publishing that saved is just like growing at an exponential rate.
One of the interesting things we say in cybersecurity is there are two types of companies, those companies who've been hacked, and the companies who will be hacked again.
And so it's just such a huge risk and need in our day, even for churches, you know, who probably don't have full-time IT staff, don't have a lot of full-time IT competency that's on their team that's looking out for this stuff.
And so that's something I'm super passionate about as well, as the risks and the attacks, especially against nonprofits and churches, are just increasing every day.
Well, the reason I bring it up is because the stat that I had heard is that data is one of the most valuable commodities on the planet.
When people think about investments or things that you can generate money off of, gold, oil, things of this nature, clean energy in the future, data... is one of the most valuable commodities.
I think the biggest thing is because it's so personal, right? The amount of data that our devices are collecting and because we're using our devices for everything from health data, you know, your watches, your phones, collecting your steps, your heart rate, you know, all sorts of health data to, I mean, literally everything to do with your personal life, emails, work, texts.
I think it's valuable because it's so personal and, you know, with technology being such a big part of our life, it's such a big part of our you can say digital footprint, our life, it's everywhere.
It's like every interaction that we're doing and most of our interactions with other people as well getting captured that way.
There's so many implications when it comes to the security of that data because it's getting stored in so many different places.
You think of the amount of accounts that you would have, all the different places that are storing your data from your phone to your email account, to your services for all these different things.
And so this only keeps going, right? Like every day, every month, you're signing up for new things, new services.
Well, it's an aspect and then it becomes a way for companies to know how to market towards us, right? That's where the value of this data comes in.
Yes, it's information about our personal selves, but it's what that personal self information then does.
Like when you go onto Amazon or when you're on social media and suddenly an ad is appearing out based on something that you've been talking about recently or a way that you've been engaging, that's based on data that's been in some sense collected from your engagement.
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