Africa-Press – Namibia. Africa loses close to US$10 billion to cybercrime.
This is a staggering amount compared to the continent’s current cybersecurity market projection of US$2.24 billion.
The market is projected to increase by 6.8% to US$3.11 billion in the next half a decade.
What is tantamount to the financial losses is the 96% of the incidents that go unreported and unresolved. The figures were shared by South Africa’s Billy Selekane, founder and executive chairman of Billy Selekane International, yesterday.
He was speaking at the Namibia International Cybersecurity Conference and Exhibition underway in Windhoek.
He encouraged Africa to start owning and shaping its digital space.
Selekane’s top-tier strategies through which Africa can secure its digital state and build trust are digital sovereignty, a human capacity cyber-ecosystem, as well as harmonising legal frameworks and operational collaboration.
He said there is a need to create legislation that is going to protect and create collaboration for the Southern African Development Community.
His view is that operating in silos will take African countries a long time to attain digital sovereignty. However, through collaboration, citizens and their data will be protected.
“We need to start building and owning our data centres. We need to train our young people to be able to understand the digital world and partake in this economy. Entrepreneurs in Namibia should start saying, ‘How can we approach the government to help and fund us to build our own local data centres?’” Selekane added.
He noted that if Africa does not own its data, it does not own its future.
He said the only way to do that is to build human capacity by training African youth and giving young entrepreneurs opportunities to partake through investment from the government and other blue-chip organisations.
The three-day conference, which started yesterday, is hosted under the theme ‘Building Namibia’s Digital Future: Collaboration, Innovation and Capacity Building’.
The conference chairperson, Paulinus Sheehama said that as Namibia embraces a rapidly evolving digital future, the nation’s prosperity and security will depend on how well different stakeholders collaborate.
It will depend on how boldly they innovate and how effectively they build the skills and capacity that the institutions, businesses and communities need to thrive.
“The purpose of this conference is to create a dynamic space where experts, policymakers, industry leaders and stakeholders come together to share knowledge, exchange ideas and forge partnerships that will strengthen our collective ability to safeguard Namibia’s digital landscape.
“It is a forum to tackle hard questions, learn from global best practices and craft solutions that are rooted in our local realities,” he said.
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