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Cybersec-Pro bono
Cybersec-Pro bono is a hub based in Botswana that will promote the uptake of women in the ICT industry by incubating women to equip them with necessary technical, legal, and soft skills needed to assist on pro bono bases, start-ups, small business as well as individuals who may not be able to afford costs to implement security, and for those who may find themselves victims of cybercrimes. Initially, it will target women who have graduated in a Law Degree (LLB ) or ICT for the first two years and later expand to take up more women who would like to switch career to cyber security. We will follow the employment laws of Ministry of Labor and Home Affairs and take women who are 18 - 65 years with special priority given to the youth (18 -35). The initiative is at inception stage and pilot will officially commence post the ITU innovation challenge ruling. We are looking at 5 years operation and will expand this regionally and then internationally based on the feedback from monitoring and evaluation.
Cybersec-Pro bono will take in young women who have received the Angela Matlapeng (AMA)Women In ICT Award which is an academic excellence award for women in ICT undergraduate courses, and is currently sponsored by BOFINET - a local PTO in Botswana. The award is given in recognition of young ladies who are studying any computing course and do well in their final year, and it aims to inspire and encourage more women to enroll into the ICT career path. The award is currently running in 1 of the 6 schools that offering ICT related courses in the country but plans to expand.
This initiative will help with implementing cyber security wholesomely from the technical to the human aspect covering the technical, governance & legal, social and awareness aspects while promoting women employability in the cyber security career path.
State your goals
1. To attract at least 100 women and promote their employability to diversify the cyber security career path & the ICT industry in general by 2022.
The long-term goals are to:
2. Achieve cyber resilience by enabling start-ups, SMEs, and less fortunate individuals to combat and defend themselves against cyber threats and vulnerabilities.
3. Advance the security culture & secure behaviour in start-ups and SMEs in Botswana.
What problems (particularly in value chain competitiveness and global disruption) are your community’s stakeholders facing due to the Covid-19 pandemic?
Our country sits at an 18.19% unemployment rate in 2019 as compared to 17.35% from the previous year according to the national statistics.
Botswana is no exception in the 2019 Women in Cybersecurity report published by (ISC)2 which indicates that women represent only 24% of the cybersecurity workforce and reveals that wage inequality remains a challenge
The African Cyber Report 2018 says that women make up an estimated 10% of the cybersecurity work force in Africa.
The African Cyber Report of 2018 also says 66% of the respondents answered Yes to the question: "IS THE CYBERSECURITY INDUSTRY FAILING TO ATTRACT YOUNG TALENT AND WOMEN?"
African Cyber Report also indicated that recruiters in Botswana are generally challenged by the length of time it takes to fill a cyber security role.
The African Cyber report also highlighted that women are more reluctant than men to join the cyber space especially if they do not have the relevant skills and I quote: "As a rule, women wait until they accrue required skills before applying for cybersecurity jobs, while men routinely bluff their way through. The men may have none of the skills and will still apply.
Recent research report by Digital Shadows (https://resources.digitalshadows.com/account-takeover-prevention) indicates that more than 15 billion stolen user information is being offered for free or for sale on cyber-crime forums and market places including information from Botswana.
Latest ITU GCI 2018 shows that Botswana has an index of 0.440, a regional ranking of 10 and ranks at 88 globally.
According to an interview with BOCRA comm CIRT, more than 10k vulnerabilities observed over a period of two months during the covid19 lock down, and this was just from user behaviour factors such as downloading media via non-whitelisted peer-to-peer sites.
There still exists a gap of legislative framework which is meant to set the minimum foundation of behaviour on which further cybersecurity capabilities can be built. Lack of a cyber security law of Botswana makes technical experts and other resources less efficient in combating cyber crimes if the law does not protect their actions.
Botswana has no cyber security law yet, as it is still in the process of establishing a National CIRT.
What minimum viable solution(s) are you proposing to address the challenge(s) in your community?
High unemployment rate – Cybersec -Pro bono will increase the employability of women in cyber security. We will also produce consultants who will conduct risk assessments and assist organizations and countries with the development of cyber laws and policies. We will also have our consultants aiding with business continuity plans and training of the BC/DR teams for cyber-related disasters. In addition, we plan to also hire out our incident respondents.
Few women in ICT and reluctancy to join Cyber Security Industry – We will scout for talent and recruit women into Cybersec- Pro bono first starting with ICT and LLB graduates (to later expand to other fields) and equip them with skills needed to respond to cyber incidents and crimes. We will create a safe environment to enable women to master the core of the craft and up their skills as they prepare to assist the target communities. This will increase their chances to be hired as more organizational SOCs and sectorial CIRTs are being established. Cybersec- Pro bono will also develop an efficient online platform that will facilitate recruitment from external entities and enable funding as well.
High cyber incidents and breaches – We will use the CDCAT tool to first conduct a cyber risk assessment to investigate the start-up/SMEs maturity level. The report generated maps cyber risk to cost so we will then compare this cost of a potential cyber bridge against a start-up/SME's turnover and profit to establish whether the company can afford to address a cyber bridge. We will then work towards putting security measures in place and monitoring progress to take start-ups/SMEs from maturity 0 (no cyber security capability) to at least level 3 (Business Enabling). We will also assist individuals who are victims of cybercrimes and point them to the relevant help through our established relationships with other stakeholders such as social workers and law enforcement. Through our awareness programs, we will help mould a culture of security in our societies and employees in organizations.
Low cyber security index - Cybersec-Pro bono will definitely increase our measure of progress in cybersecurity commitment especially under the capacity building pillar which measures up based on the existence of research and development, education and training programmes, certified professionals and public sector agencies fostering capacity building. We wish to see Botswana in top 10 global ranking and #1 in Africa.
Insufficient Legislative Framework – By sifting the LLB graduates focus to cyber law and training our women in cyber law and legislation, this will increase the know-how of this aspect and enable our women to take active part in the development of policies and legislation, and even advice based on live experiences they gain while at Cybersec- Pro bono.
*Through monitoring and evaluation of the program, we will scale up to the regional economic communities and then internationally were need arises.
Share your story (your narrative)
Hi, I am Angela and here goes my story:
The year was 2015 when I graduated top of my class having achieved the only first class in BSc. Computer Systems Engineering. I was the valedictorian of my group across the computing faculty. What makes this event the interesting part of the story is that I went into the program with the one intention to prove to the world that women can also make it in ICT. Looking back to the year 2010, having missed the entry cut off by two points to make it into a psychology degree program, i resorted to apply for accounts instead and just as I was in a queue to pay my admission reservation fee, I overheard disparaging remarks from a male student in the college concerning the dismal performance of female students enrolled in computer systems engineering course. Momentarily, I chose to prove such stereotyped altercation wrong and enrolled for CSE instead.
Although I had absolutely no clue what this computing course entailed, I was determined to put shame to the shameful words that were shamming women at that very moment. I strived for excellence from the first day , always in the top 2% of my class until i came first at graduation. I didn't come from a well off family and could not afford a laptop of my own, so I relied on the limited lab computers. Programming became one of the core modules I enjoyed a lot and was good at but often times I had to write my code exercises on paper on days I could not access a computer, and by so doing I became better and better at the skill.
Looking back at my journey and the struggles I went through during the 4 years of study, surely most women struggled, not because they were any incompetent but because of barriers brought about by misogyny. I realized that I had to divert from my initial route to a career path in psychology in order to serve a higher purpose of being exemplary to other women who feel stuck and discouraged by stereotypes and exclusion in the ICT space. Through my experience, the school agreed to award female excellence in honor of my journey in the form of AMA Women in ICT Awards. The school has also revived a women in ICT club to share experiences with each other and provide peer counselling for those who might loose strength along the way.
Through this award, the women will be brought into cybersec-Pro bono together with others from various fields, to further shape their skills and continue to excel in the cyber security field. Having been raised by two single moms - my grandma and mum, I am first hand prove that women can achieve anything great they set their minds to, and so the cybersec-Pro bono initiative is here for women who will challenge the status quo, to stand by one another and empower each other to strike down gender bias while helping the community to become cyber resilient.
Please provide any additional relevant information that you would like to share.
Certainly cyber incidents like any other disaster have the capability to turn into a crisis that may disrupt value chain competitiveness, cripple a whole country's economy and even harm the physical world depending on the magnitude of damage caused. Through this initiative, more women will grow in capacity and be included in fighting this border-less monstrosity which knows no gender either.
Your Final Proposal for challenge
yes
Cybersec-Pro Bono is of paramount importance undoubtedly.
However My juvenile mind got curious on the following issues
1. Your Special Target Group is LLB Graduates indulged themselves into the Digital world.
Whats the rationale for limiting this ?
Whats the percentage of your special class among the The Billions of Stolen Data you referred ?
To be precise , A 10th or 12th Grade student (female) might be the victim even. So Integrating those juvenile bloods will be transforming them (at least few Passionate/tech savvy ).
2. The awards In Botswana for young rising ladies studying ICT. Beside That funding you declared assisting startups. What will be the Modality ?
And
Assistance Scope ?
Are you Planning your pro-Bono specific objective based certifications prior to defining your scope ? In contrast to That , you wrote CYBER security issues requires Financial loads appearing as constraints for most of the startups and your pro-bono is the savior. That s great! Is there any sort of Comparison / Monitoring and evaluation Plan considering SMART indicator based ( side by side )?
To be honest its needles to say that your ideation deserves noble acuity.
Consider my queries as to enable my learning on your ones .
Best Wishes !!!
gets Specific
Cybersec-Pro Bono is of paramount importance undoubtedly.
However My juvenile mind got curious on the following issues
1. Your Special Target Group is LLB Graduates indulged themselves into the Digital world.
Whats the rationale for limiting this ?
Whats the percentage of your special class among the The Billions of Stolen Data you referred ?
To be precise , A 10th or 12th Grade student (female) might be the victim even. So Integrating those juvenile bloods will be transforming them (at least few Passionate/tech savvy ).
2. The awards In Botswana for young rising ladies studying ICT. Beside That funding you declared assisting startups. What will be the Modality ?
And
Assistance Scope ?
Are you Planning your pro-Bono specific objective based certifications prior to defining your scope ? In contrast to That , you wrote CYBER security issues requires Financial loads appearing as constraints for most of the startups and your pro-bono is the savior. That s great! Is there any sort of Comparison / Monitoring and evaluation Plan considering SMART indicator based ( side by side )?
To be honest its needles to say that your ideation deserves noble acuity.
Consider my queries as to enable my learning on your ones .
Best Wishes !!!
gets Specific
Cybersec-Pro Bono is of paramount importance undoubtedly.
However My juvenile mind got curious on the following issues
1. Your Special Target Group is LLB Graduates indulged themselves into the Digital world.
Whats the rationale for limiting this ?
Whats the percentage of your special class among the The Billions of Stolen Data you referred ?
To be precise , A 10th or 12th Grade student (female) might be the victim even. So Integrating those juvenile bloods will be transforming them (at least few Passionate/tech savvy ).
2. The awards In Botswana for young rising ladies studying ICT. Beside That funding you declared assisting startups. What will be the Modality ?
And
Assistance Scope ?
Are you Planning your pro-Bono specific objective based certifications prior to defining your scope ? In contrast to That , you wrote CYBER security issues requires Financial loads appearing as constraints for most of the startups and your pro-bono is the savior. That s great! Is there any sort of Comparison / Monitoring and evaluation Plan considering SMART indicator based ( side by side )?
To be honest its needles to say that your ideation deserves noble acuity.
Consider my queries as to enable my learning on your ones .
Best Wishes !!!
gets Specific
Cybersec-Pro Bono is of paramount importance undoubtedly.
However My juvenile mind got curious on the following issues
1. Your Special Target Group is LLB Graduates indulged themselves into the Digital world.
Whats the rationale for limiting this ?
Whats the percentage of your special class among the The Billions of Stolen Data you referred ?
To be precise , A 10th or 12th Grade student (female) might be the victim even. So Integrating those juvenile bloods will be transforming them (at least few Passionate/tech savvy ).
2. The awards In Botswana for young rising ladies studying ICT. Beside That funding you declared assisting startups. What will be the Modality ?
And
Assistance Scope ?
Are you Planning your pro-Bono specific objective based certifications prior to defining your scope ? In contrast to That , you wrote CYBER security issues requires Financial loads appearing as constraints for most of the startups and your pro-bono is the savior. That s great! Is there any sort of Comparison / Monitoring and evaluation Plan considering SMART indicator based ( side by side )?
To be honest its needles to say that your ideation deserves noble acuity.
Consider my queries as to enable my learning on your ones .
Best Wishes !!!
gets Specific
Cybersec-Pro Bono is of paramount importance undoubtedly.
However My juvenile mind got curious on the following issues
1. Your Special Target Group is LLB Graduates indulged themselves into the Digital world.
Whats the rationale for limiting this ?
Whats the percentage of your special class among the The Billions of Stolen Data you referred ?
To be precise , A 10th or 12th Grade student (female) might be the victim even. So Integrating those juvenile bloods will be transforming them (at least few Passionate/tech savvy ).
2. The awards In Botswana for young rising ladies studying ICT. Beside That funding you declared assisting startups. What will be the Modality ?
And
Assistance Scope ?
Are you Planning your pro-Bono specific objective based certifications prior to defining your scope ? In contrast to That , you wrote CYBER security issues requires Financial loads appearing as constraints for most of the startups and your pro-bono is the savior. That s great! Is there any sort of Comparison / Monitoring and evaluation Plan considering SMART indicator based ( side by side )?
To be honest its needles to say that your ideation deserves noble acuity.
Consider my queries as to enable my learning on your ones .
Best Wishes !!!
gets Specific
Users tagged:
Cybersec-Pro Bono is of paramount importance undoubtedly.
However My juvenile mind got curious on the following issues
1. Your Special Target Group is LLB Graduates indulged themselves into the Digital world.
Whats the rationale for limiting this ?
Whats the percentage of your special class among the The Billions of Stolen Data you referred ?
To be precise , A 10th or 12th Grade student (female) might be the victim even. So Integrating those juvenile bloods will be transforming them (at least few Passionate/tech savvy ).
2. The awards In Botswana for young rising ladies studying ICT. Beside That funding you declared assisting startups. What will be the Modality ?
And
Assistance Scope ?
Are you Planning your pro-Bono specific objective based certifications prior to defining your scope ? In contrast to That , you wrote CYBER security issues requires Financial loads appearing as constraints for most of the startups and your pro-bono is the savior. That s great! Is there any sort of Comparison / Monitoring and evaluation Plan considering SMART indicator based ( side by side )?
To be honest its needles to say that your ideation deserves noble acuity.
Consider my queries as to enable my learning on your ones .
Best Wishes !!!
gets Specific
Users tagged:
Hello Angela
Great Initiative.
Quick question how will the Cybersec-Pro Bono assist in Cyber bullying with the most recent trends of social media and brand awareness measures? Does it take into consideration such concepts?
Thanks.
Sounds great
Hello Angela,
Cyber security is indeed a hot topic nowadays. Your initiative is clearly aiming to touch upon multiple sides of it and I can see the clear focus on empowering women in this process. Still, while reading your concept several questions appeared in my mind.
It seems that you have a clear understanding on how you’re planning to solve a number of issues related to cybersec but it is not exactly clear for me if you’re going to approach each problem individually or as a set of initiatives. Have you considered making them separate initiatives within the umbrella of your organization?
My question is based on the fact that I can see some of them as pilot projects that can further expand if proven efficient (here I refer to the idea of empowering women from law and IR faculties in cybersec) and others as a permanent support initiative not related to any particular timeframe and unrestricted by the number of beneficiaries (like the partnership with e-Botho).
The other questions actually come from the previous reflection and it is related to the stakeholders you’re planning to engage. I can see the academia, private sector, entrepreneurs’, support network and government organizations’ being potential partners for your initiative. So, do you already have some partnership set in place?
I guess I will finish my comment by also suggesting you to consider using the ITU tools for further improving your initiative. For example, there is a great stakeholder mapping tool that can support you in further partnership building. You can find the toolkit here: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Innovation/Docum...-2018-PDF-E.pdf
Hi Angela, great initiative and love the story behind.
After reading your description (and comments) I find it unclear if this is going to be like a training academy or is it more like an incubator that brings women together? In both cases, have you considered training on soft skills at all? Aside from technical training?
Also do you have a clear idea of who can some potential sponsors/partners be at this stage? It would be great to start building some relationship and reach out to people to see if there's an appetite for that/what the response is and maybe even consider a survey you can ask your target market to fill in to determine if what you perceive as problem is indeed a problem for them.
Best of luck!
Hello Angela, congratulations on this idea. Are you looking for this to be an incubator set up for the women that you are targeting. It is not very clear. All the best
Status label added: Community feedback received
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.
Status label added: Mentor feedback received
this is a very good idea, in fact am also interested in cyber security and i have learnt concerning it from your idea. it is really a nice one
Users tagged:
Dear Angela,
I am so glad for discovering your challenge post, not only for the awesome good causes embedded in your project but also touched by your personal story. Congratulations on all your achievements and hope you are enjoying every moment with your career in tech and inspiring your peers.
You have a clear understanding of the key stakeholders and the project has great potential in helping to tackle global challenges like diversity and inclusivity, gender equality, skill gaps, support and encourage digital innovation on various scales in the tech sector. Also, it is no doubt the cyber-security is vital to all businesses and individuals.
Following are some questions and comments I hope can be interesting or helpful to you:
- Are you going to focus mainly on Botswana? As one key advantage for the ventures in tech, virtual and flexible location factor can leverage you more opportunities on a larger scale? It does come with benefits starting a micro pilot in one location/culture if that is the reason, have you considered the pros and cons came with this particular market environment?
- As you are connecting multiple types of stakeholders, for the capacity you plan to have, it is also key to establish a business model or thinking of various funding channels that would keep your work sustainable, especially if you have plan to scale in the future.
Last but not least, as someone running a talent platform, if you like we can explore collaboration opportunities. Happy to share my learnings and experience that might be helpful. Please feel free to comment back or email me: yanting@talenttrending.com :)
Thanks again for being such an aspiring female in tech and definitely like to see more women in tech rising with the Cybersec-Pro bono!
Cybersec-Pro bono Undoubtedly a remarkable initiative. Can you please share with us what is the alternative way of funding your initiative without donations or Is there any business model?
Hi Angela,
How many of your target group are you going to impact? Are the cyberbullying victims in the rural of Botswana able to afford your consultancy fee?
Hey Angela, I really like this project and I hope we can cooperate together but i have few suggestions to make more impact in your country
1. Find a way to incorporate Cybersecurity (digital security) in a lower level of education as well as education syllabus in your country. I believe once this project is in motion, you can have greater influence in the ministry of education to add cybersecurity.
And please include all girls who have passion and interest in cybersecurity because it seems that your targeted audience scope is a bit limited.
All in all, Good luck and keep pushing!! Welcome to Tanzania.
Hi Angela, this is a great submission. In relation to tech hubs for women are tech hubs broadening women’s participation in the ICT workforce or are they reproducing existing gender digital gaps? How has been your experience so far? Then what are the inclusion efforts and organisational structure you have put in place to promote more women to pursue tech? All the best
You can edit now
Users tagged:
Good job! Describe what kind of impact your solution will have on your community and how exactly it will enable/empower the women in your community- conducive to accelerating digital transformation in your community. Also, state clearly on what is your ask to the private sector and entrepreneurial support community.
Users tagged:
Status label added: Expert feedback received
Status label added: Submission completed
Status label added: Idea under jury review
The idea has been progressed to the next milestone.