Digital transformation needs security to be sustainable – BlackBerry

Africa's digital transformation story has leapfrogged many other markets; however, cybersecurity remains a problem.

These were the sentiments shared by BlackBerry Chief Elite Customer Officer, CMO and Head of Sustainability Neelam Sandhu during an interview with Connecting Africa at the Cybertech Africa conference held in Kigali, Rwanda.

"For digital transformation to be sustainable and to continue to expand, it has to be secure, it has to respect user privacy, the connectivity has to be reliable and that is where BlackBerry comes in," she explained.

The company was one of the key partners at the conference and Sandhu also gave an address on BlackBerry's reasons for coming back to the African market as a software company and partnering with African countries and local companies.

Sandhu said that about ten years ago, the company evolved from a hardware company into a software company, after looking at the technology ecosystem and identifying that the differentiator indicator was software and not hardware.

She said that moving towards software was a natural progression in BlackBerry's strategy.

"The core reasons that BlackBerry has been successful as a smartphone company came down to being the best in cloud security, we innovated and continued to innovate in security and in user privacy, we believe that a user should own their own data," she said.

"We used to secure and connect phones, now we secure and connect any type of endpoint, any type of operating system, we connect and secure cars, we work with almost all car brands apart from Tesla, we have 235 million car brands secured by our technology," she added.

"We also work with the medical industry in connecting and securing devices like pacemakers, and it would be disastrous if devices like that were hacked," she continued.

Being involved in such innovations, it was important for BlackBerry to partner with African companies as well as governments that were also fighting cybercrime.

BlackBerry tackles cybersecurity skills shortage

Sandhu acknowledged that the skills shortage in cybersecurity is playing a huge role in slowing progress in the fight against cybercrime.

"To counter that, BlackBerry is partnering with educational institutions to train youth, we have also invited a lot of interns to train at Blackberry as well as bring graduates on as full-time employees," she said.

She added that the company is involved in other programs that raise awareness and highlight the need to fight the skills shortage.

BlackBerry has partnered with educational institutions to train young people in combating the skills shortage in cybersecurity.
(Source: Image by DCStudio on Freepik).

"Frankly, I believe that cybersecurity 101 should be built into schools' curriculum, as schools have not evolved for many years around the world and cybersecurity is something that we need to think about as it is part of our daily lives," she explained.

Furthermore, she explained that the company is involved in AI-based cybersecurity technology because a lot of the cyberthreat actors are using AI technology methods to attack organizations.

"To stay ahead of the threat actors as well as shorten the skills gap in cybersecurity, AI is critical and that is what we have pioneered and continued to innovate on," Sandhu continued.

Lack of women in cybersecurity

Traditionally, there has been a gender equality problem in tech, however, that problem is beginning to be addressed, she explained.

"Rwanda, in particular, does a great job in leveling the playing fields between women and men in the workplace and that was highlighted by Rwanda's Minister of ICT and Innovation Paula Ingabire during her keynote address," she continued.

"Moreover, the tech space has been a male-dominated industry for a long time and young women going into the tech world is daunting, so it is about changing that stereotype and making it comfortable for women," she concluded.

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*Top image is of BlackBerry Chief Elite Customer Officer, CMO and Head of Sustainability Neelam Sandhu. (Source: Cybertech Africa).

— Matshepo Sehloho, Associate Editor, Connecting Africa