Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) will play crucial role towards establishing a pan-African IT professional’s body – African Computer Society (ACoS), says Churchills Ogutu.
Ogutu, an Executive of the Computer Society of Kenya, represented Dr. Waudo Siganga, President, at this year’s Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) International Conference under the theme: Smart, Secure and Sustainable Nation.
Ogutu who also the ICT Officer at Nuclear Power and Energy Agency, Kenya, had during a brief interview with TechEconomy, stated that the Nigerian counterpart (NCS) is favorably disposed towards setting up African Computer Society as a vehicle to drive innovation on the continent.
He said, aligned his thoughts with Professor Adesina Sodiya, the President of NCS’s position that Africa needs to train more youths on Ethical Hacking and how to use historical data through the help of artificial intelligence to fight cybercrime.
Narrowing down to Nigeria and Kenya, the similarities among African countries in Information Technology development, he said, “The similarities are the same across the world. One typical example is what happens in cyber-hacking. The world is becoming a digital village. This is why we feel a need to come together to block cyber threats. Africa has the best brains; we must do everything possible to keep our best home.
“If you look at Kenya, the best technology for mobile money was invented in Kenya. It is called the M-Pesa. Today, the world is taking a leaf from that technological breakthrough.
We are coming together because we need to motivate our children and persuade our young innovators that the best way to go is to develop Africa.
“In a nutshell, we want to come together under an African umbrella to pursue a common goal: Put African innovation forward in the global arena. We need to jointly fight cybercrime. If one country is trying all it could to combat cybercrime and the other is not meeting up to expectations, then, we need each other to meet the target. It was just like when Coronavirus came, it started from somewhere and later spread; the whole world felt the impact. Also, cyber-hacking started from someone but has now become a global issue. Therefore, everybody must be involved to curb the increase in cybercrime. The Internet, like every other thing that has advantages, has its disadvantages. But we need to work harder to block the disadvantages. We understand that while the vibrant, young African youths are working hard to invent solutions to solve our problems, the bad eggs are not sleeping too. We need to go ahead of them”.
“Africa is ripe for digital revolution. Bill Gates (Microsoft) employs Africans; Google, Oracle, amongst others, employ Africans who help them perform the ‘magic’ we applaud across the world.
“There is the issue of corruption (on the Continent), but the greatest corruption is not giving the youth opportunity; now we need to convince them to stay back here (in Africa) by making the place secure and making the IT ecosystem robust.
Churchills Ogutu said that collaborations towards establishing African Computer Society have been extended to Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Congo, Tunisia, Kenya, with discussions still ongoing in many other countries.
“We need to have the goodwill of the individual country’s Computer Society/Association to get the job done”, he said.