Press Release
GCA Travels to Ghana to Join the International Community in Discussing Cyber Capacity-Building at Scale
- The organization’s Chief Business Officer, Komal Bazaz Smith, and the Director of Engagement at the Capacity & Resilience Program, Gill Thomas, are attending this week’s GC3B Conference in Accra, Ghana. They will be moderating round tables and participating in discussions on key subjects like cyber capacity building and cyber crime.
Accra (Ghana), 29 November 2023. GCA’s lead representative in Accra (Ghana), Chief Business Officer Komal Bazaz Smith, will moderate a roundtable discussion on cyber capacity building, today.
GCA is committed and experienced to developing and strengthening the behaviors, skills, and processes of individuals, governments and organizations to effectively and safely participate in the digital ecosystem.
With a goal of understanding the critical elements needed to embed effective cyber capacity building at scale, GCA organized a round table with diverse experts: Jordan Matthews, from KPMG; Toni Friedman, from The Asia Foundation; Terdoofan Agber, from Global Anti Scam Alliance (GASA); Elizabeth Vish, from the Institute for Security and Technology (IST); Ernest Opare, from Cyber Intelligence and Security Aid Bureau; Osama Manzar, from the Digital Empowerment Foundation, and Audrey Mnisi Mireku, working at the Ghana Association of Banks.
“We are stressing the impact and unique socio-economic, legal, and political challenges of making cybersecurity tools and solutions -like our own GCA Cybersecurity Toolkits- for individuals and vulnerable communities. I am very impressed by the insights and experiences that we are contributing during this global event in Ghana, gathering all those that represent marginalized, economically impacted, or underserved communities, such as small and medium sized businesses, journalists, and mission-based organizations,” Komal Bazaz Smith said.
The session, entitled “What it Takes! Scaling Cybersecurity Tools and Solutions”, will facilitate a lively exchange among the participants, more specifically:
- Identification of critical actors involved in the cybersecurity landscape and their roles.
- Investment needs and opportunities.
- Innovative solutions, and
- Strategic collaboration between nonprofits, international development implementers, governments, the private sector, and other stakeholders.
Komal Bazaz Smith (first, from right to left) moderated another session organized by the World Economic Forum (WEF), entitled “Staying Ahead of the Curve: Cybercrime in the era of new tech”. With top experts like Alwi-Boabert Antsiako, Director-General at Cyber Security Authority of Ghana (CSA Ghana); Pei Ling Lee, Head of Cyber Strategy & Capabilities Development from INTERPOL’s Cyber Crime Directorate, and Laura Temesi, Head of Cyber Partnerships at Standard Chartered, they exchanged their views on effective and scalable approaches that can address new and emerging threats– like artificial intelligence– as well as lessons to effectively leverage public-private cooperation to combat cybercrime.
As developing economies invest in their digital transformation, they also become fertile ground for cybercrime. To stay ahead of cybercriminals, public and private actors across the ecosystem need to cooperate more and utilize new technologies to their advantage.
Tomorrow, Thursday 30/11 at 12:15 GMT, Gill Thomas, GCA’s Director of Engagement at the Capacity & Resilience Program, will speak at a panel organized by the Council of Europe called “Back to the future: lessons for cyber capacity building“. She will focus on experiences from different regions that can help identify successful stories and challenges to inform the future of cyber capacity building and ensure effectiveness by design.
Gill Thomas will also address lessons learned in cyber capacity building from design to implementation, and what drives the process of change, and how to scale-up the results of successful projects, so that they can leverage resources to deliver wider results in a sustainable manner.
Pledging the Accra Call
GCA has endorsed the announcement of the Accra Call made today during the opening ceremony of the conference. We, GCA– along with several partners from government, the private sector and civil society– are initiating an effort, Common Good Cyber, to improve the resilience of cybersecurity capacity building and cybersecurity services that the world relies on, by developing innovative models to sustain these efforts, in support of Action 11, 12, and 14 . This effort, Common Good Cyber, is ongoing.
Co-organized by the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, GCA’s partner, the CyberPeace Institute, the World Bank, and the World Economic Forum, and hosted by the Ministry of Digitalisation and Communications of Ghana, GC3B brings together high-level leaders and experts from the global cyber and development communities under the common theme cyber resilience for development.
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About the Global Cyber Alliance
GCA builds communities to deploy tools, services, and programs that provide cybersecurity at global scale. We achieve global scale in three ways: working with communities; engaging infrastructure owners and operators; and driving strategic mobilizations for collective action on cybersecurity.
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