Africa-Press – Uganda. The current Covid-19 pandemic has put the world’s systems and entities to test. Fortunately, the pandemic found the world in advanced stages of various technologies, prominent among them, the Internet.
The Internet and its associated technologies have offered the world viable alternatives to business continuity following the introduction of physical (social) distancing restrictions. However, the long-term vulnerability of this entire paradigm has to be taken into account.
Let us imagine the worst – imagine a total Internet shutdown amidst a total countrywide lockdown. Such a blackout would be catastrophic for any digital community that exists without standby robust recovery arrangements.
Imagine a scenario, for example, where our key businesses’ cloud platforms are forced into long closure due to massive persistent malware attacks. Therefore, on a national-level, I would assume Uganda ought to establish the following: – i)The National cybersecurity unit. We should build capacity both infrastructure-wise and human resource-wise to enable early detection and prevention of imminent attacks on our e-infrastructure as well as facilitate swift responses and recovery post-attacks. ii) Wide Area Network. For various longterm benefits (security, maintenance, etc), government should consider investing in a countrywide wide area network (WAN) for government business, among others, to continue running without necessarily being on the Global Internet Gateway. Local Governments (at district level) should, for example, be able to communicate and work collaboratively using such a WAN while being off the global Internet grid. Similarly, National Health/Patient Data, among other sensitive data, shouldn’t have to go through the Internet if it is being shared only within the Country. iii)Nationwide Internet Hotspots. The Government should fast-track its plan to complete and maintain installation of Internet hotspots across Uganda. iv)A policy on Healthcare/Patient Data. The Government ought to have a policy in place (and communicate it clearly) on Institutional and individual researchers limits in as far as sharing the nation’s healthcare records/data in concerned. v)Lower the Tax on Internet Data. Government should aim for a win-win situation by facilitating digital transformation while meeting its revenue collection targets, otherwise the current 12 per cent levy may soon prove to be a negative incentive to the current Covid-19 enforced transformation. At institutional and individual level, the following key considerations ought to be taken into account while migrating your business or business processes online: – i)Custom vs Off-the-shelf E-Solutions. As different business entities rush to go online, correct decisions have to be made in view of both the short-term and long-term benefits of each option. The rule of thumb is that if the resources required to build and securely maintain a custom solution in a timely manner are available, then a custom solution is preferred, otherwise opting for an off-the-shelf solution is the wiser decision. ii)Invest in your E-Security. Once your business has gone online (Internet), you are as good as one step away from being hacked/hijacked by any of the billions of devices online. Just the way we invest in securing our physical premises, we must equally invest in securing our e-platforms. iii)E-Payment Integration. Make an effort to ensure that your new transaction platform integrates the now commonly used e-payment methods (i.e mobile money, Visa / Mastercard, etc). iv) Invest in Data Analytics. Each activity on your e-platform is going to generate data, and fortunately unlike with traditional face-to-face transactions, electronic transactions are seamless to record. You should invest in a data analytics strategy that will help your entity grow by making sense of the large volumes of transaction data. As the saying goes, data is indeed the new oil of the current century!
Dr Umar Yahya is a senior lecturer of Computer Science & Head, Motion Analysis Research Laboratory at IUIU .
