Webinar Series

African Perspectives on Cybersecurity in Light of the Pandemic 




 


African Perspectives on Cybersecurity in light of the Pandemic 

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Pandemics affect the entire world by definition, as does Cybersecurity, but many ramifications are specific to the regions and local environments under attack. During this webinar we will look at the impacts of cybersecurity threats in the context of the COVID-19 Pandemic across multiple sectors in Africa. 





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Our Speakers


Mr. David Mulinde 


Mr. Desiré Banse


Mr. Allan Obalim 


Mr. Robert Kennedy

Mr. David MulindeNational Data Architect of the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) 

David Mulinde is a Data Management specialist with over 10 years of experience in managing petroleum E&P data, Developing Databases, setting up ICT infrastructure and has been actively involved in creating innovative information management projects that drive efficiency and effectiveness. David is currently working at the Petroleum Authority of Uganda as a senior database administrator. David has attained a degree in Electrical Engineering and a master’s degree in Database Systems. He has attained the ITILv3 certification and the UgCERT that provides information and assistance to organisations in implementing proactive measures to reduce the risks of computer security incidents. He has participated in several technology mentoring bootcamps and collaboration projects both in Uganda and with other African Countries, and at the National Petroleum data Repositories (NDR) conferences at an international level. He is a member of both the SPE and PPDM. Finally, David is passionate about the health of the planet and he is enthusiastic about participating in green technology projects. He is also actively participating in the herbal research for the medicinal uses of Waragi as potent preventor of Covid-19 infection in humans.




Mr. Desiré Banse, Expat from Burkina Faso, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 

Desire Banse has worked on evaluations and technology metrology at NIST designing large-scale multi-purpose online platforms for researchers in Machine Translation, Speaker and Language Recognition, and Mobile Network Technologies. His work at Prometheus Computing as the UAS Innovation Group Lead spans computer vision, sensors hardware, and AI for Industry and Government use cases. Coming from Burkina Faso, and having studied in France, Desire is working on experimental designs for innovative solutions to problems like food security, access to power/energy and information in West Africa. He has worked with farmers and electricity professionals in Burkina in order to use drones to help them in their respective domains. He has written about Internet Connectivity in Africa and his vision on a connected world that works for everyone especially Africans. He’s a strong advocate of technology that empowers people to improve their lives. His work leverages modern tools for fast delivery, rapid prototyping, and a special focus on user education and technology adoption in challenging environments.

 




Mr. Allan Obalim, National Data Architect of the Petroleum Authority of Uganda (PAU) 

Obalim Allan Joel is an Information security specialist with a plethora of experience in managing an ICT Infrastructure while applying information security tenets and has seen the establishment of key ICT setups with a strategic alignment of new technologies that drive efficiency and effectiveness. Allan holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science with two Master degrees in Information and Network Security and ICT Management, Policy and Architectural Designs respectively and has acquired certifications that include; ISO/IEC 27001 Lead Implementer, CISSP, MCSA, PMP, ISO/IEC 27701 Privacy Information Management, ISO/IEC 27032 Lead Cybersecurity Manager, ITILv3 and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in Information Technology (DIT). Allan serves as a member of the National Information Security Advisory Group in Uganda, a group that advises Government on matters related to Cyber Security in line with National Security and is a member of both International and local chapter forums like the ISACA, ISC2, OWASP, NISAG, and lastly Association of Strategic Planning (ASP). In a nutshell, Allan is hungry for knowledge with a passion of sharing experiences and changing society as an early adopter. Finally, Allan is fervent about the health matters with a thirst for Medicinal Agricultural products on the side. Allan is currently the Manager for Information and Communications Technology with the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, the regulator of Uganda’s oil and gas sector. 




 

Moderator

Robert G. Kennedy III PE is an American systems engineer and general chairman of the Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop since 2016. Trained as a mechanical engineer specializing in robotic and Soviet studies, he worked in artificial intelligence (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL) and manufacturing (), Douglas Aircraft Company) and later on industrial, nuclear, military and space applications of robotics.  Advanced graduate studies of the Soviet Union late in the Cold War became useful again when he was selected by his professional society, the 125,000-member American Society of Mechanical Engineers, to serve as their one AAAS/ASME Congressional Fellow in 1994-95, where he spent his year in the House Subcommittee on Space focusing on commercial remote sensing and Russian space matters.  In his first day on the job, he discovered a funny (non-fatal) flaw in the contract between NASA and the Russian Space Agency governing the $400M Shuttle-Mir cooperative program.  A couple months later, he was instrumental in the formulation and evolution of Presidential Decision Directive-23, the Commercial Remote Sensing Policy.  To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Sputnik, he along with Russian scholars, published the only bilingual dual-platform encyclopedia on CD-ROM about the Soviet space program.  He has participated in the Hackers Conference for a generation since the twilight of the Cold War.  At the turn of the century, he was a Trusted Contractor and web security analyst doing counter-cracking with other well-known white-hat hackers at the former Pilot Network Services, which went under during the dot-bomb collapse just prior to 9/11.  His attention turned to climate change, green energy and back to space.  He joined Tetra Tech in the strange summer of 2007 to do green energy for a living.  In 2011, his published research in geoengineering resulted in a personal invitation by Academician Yuri Antonovich Izrael (last head of the Soviet Union's weather service) to come to Moscow all-expenses paid as a guest of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Roshydromet (their "hydrometeorology" or weather service) to participate in an international scientific conference on the problems of adaptation to climate change. For this work, in 2012 he won the first Annual J.A. Falcon Energy Award granted by ASME.  Around this time, he co-founded the Tennessee Valley Interstellar Workshop, and is president of the American branch of the Institute for Interstellar Studies.  For the past decade he has worked for the Navajo Nation in the American southwest helping them to develop big solar.  For latter half of that period, he has also worked in the countries of the Great East Africa Rift Valley (Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda) on behalf of USAID and the UK Foreign Office to build resilient interdisciplinary teams of young African geoscientists and engineers for developing their vast and indigenous renewable energy resources.  He is a prolific technical writer, having published many articles and papers in refereed peer-reviewed periodicals, chapters in half a dozen books, and numerous monographs spanning the spectrum from the sciences to the humanities. He takes pride in speaking enough foreign languages to start a bar fight just about anywhere in the world.

 


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Watch Other Webinar Recordings! 

Webinar One 

⁠Responding to COVID-19 Changing the Cybersecurity Landscape 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic we have seen a massive increase in cyber-attacks. In this webinar we discuss some of the measures people have taken to help those attacked while disabling some of the attacks. This is being done by companies and also by individual volunteers who have come together to create a taskforce to protect the people and institutions fighting these invisible attackers. 

 

Webinar Two

⁠Cyber Attacks Taking Advantage of COVID-19: Detailed Views 

In this webinar, we dive deeper into the discussion of new and evolving cybersecurity challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.  


 

Webinar Three

What We Can Learn to Better Prepare for the Next One

⁠In this week's webinar, we discuss innovative methods we can use to gather a complete data set on these attacks, analysis techniques that might be useful in examining this data set and potential recommendations that will arise as a result of the analysis process, and what data is available now and why it's not enough.  We also touch on how you can get involved to help now and what we can do to prepare for the future.