 Welcome back to our second hot topic and it's time for us to take a look at ECOAS plan to unveil cyber security advancement platform today, Tuesday. The economic community of West African state is set to launch the joint platform for advancing cyber security in West Africa and that event will be taking place today in Abuja, Nigeria. And we have been joined by Dominic Rume Uriere, certified blockchain architect and metaverse expert. He's joining us from Worry this morning. Good morning to you Dominic. Morning to you. Thanks for having me. Glad to have you join us. Well according to ECOAS, this initiative is dedicated to enhancing regional cyber diplomacy, safeguarding cyber crime and upholding data sovereignty. Now I get it just from listening to reading it out that this is a big deal. But tell us how big a deal is this initiative? It's a very big deal when you look back at history, like in 2021, one of the biggest banks in Africa, the Antitrust Bank, was targeted through cyber attack and they used a particular mall they called the Karbanak to steal a lot of customers' data and also their account number and their password. When you look at it as well, in 2021, the West African power pool cyber attack right happened and this cyber attack caused widespread power taking in a lot of countries in Africa. Even the African Union Commission in 2022 was also attacked and they used a particular malware called the Lazarus malware to steal sensitive data and internal communication. So cyber security is not a destination, it's a journey. And ECOAS, on viewing this cyber security advancement platform today, Tuesday in Abuja, that is designed to help countries in the region to improve their cyber security posture is one that is actually in the right direction because this platform will actually provide a number of resources to countries and that includes training of technical skillsets, having capacity building for cyber security professionals, and there are tools and resources that they will give to these people to help their countries to still protect critical infrastructure. When you look at it through this platform, they will create a forum that they will be able to share information and coordinate their cyber security efforts. So it is something that is in collaboration with both the United States and the European Union. They have also joined forces with the African Union of Peace and Security Development. So it is a big deal. All right. So this was birthed in Germany in 2022, December to be precise, with focus on building measures, confidence building measures. And we're finally going to see an improved inter-trade relations in the sub-region because it's been a major problem for people on the continent, the sub-region particularly. Trade relations has not been smooth as we expect it to be. Do you see this facilitating that, improving on trade liberalization within the sub-region? Well, when you talk about trade relationship, there are a lot of factors to consider. A lot of factors like uniform currency, borders, porosity, and all of those things. Now, this is technologically focused, right? In terms of being able to exchange intellectual property in the tech market, yes, maybe we can start having the excellent exchange program between countries that have more experts for cyber security to also help out because due to this program, they are creating a forum that brings everyone together. If we see that, okay, maybe in terms of digital commerce, as it relates to the tech space, yes, that would be heightened. The trade relationship there would be heightened. However, when you talk of maybe physical cash prop like cocoa, like oil and all that, well, maybe the efficiency that something like cyber security attack happened with the power grid some years back, which was in 2021. Maybe the efficiency that this particular platform would give to be able to prevent things like this from happening would also better trade relationships between these countries. I don't know how much you know about this event that's going to take place in Abuja today. And how involved did you say the echo has gotten the youth? You are youth, you're younger, I mean tech survey, and I know that the future is tech, right? How involved did you say that the youth are involved in the activities of echo has, especially as it concerns this event that's taking place today in Abuja? So the echo has truly in our relationship. Okay, I belong to a group called the collective rise of Africa, the peaceful collective rise of Africa. And truly the echo has been able to involve a couple of young people into their system as well. However, much more is seen there to be done to be able to see that more appointments are given to people, especially stakeholders in different regions that have youth, very high youth participation. Now the echo has actually done quite a good job. However, there has been no very deep education because you see for this technology to grow, right? There are a number of factors that have contributed to the increase in the cyber attack in West Africa, degrees of technology in the region. And you know it is a lot of youth that use technology in the region. The lack of cyber security awareness and resources too. So to be able to also get these youths that are using most of these technological devices and infrastructure involved in making them aware and giving them resources to also protect themselves from these things would have seen that they get more youths involved even before this type of event is taking place. However, to address all of this, they are going in the right directions, starting to invest into education and awareness. And something I also did recently in my book from Code to Consciousness, one that I shared, Power, Artificial Intelligence can combat a lot of these falls of security, right? I said they need to also see that they strengthen their cyber crime laws and enforcement and this is coming from the ethics side of it. So the echo has truly done a quite a commendable job in terms of getting the youth involved. However, more is still needed to be done. And you said more is still needed to be done. What more would you like to see done? Okay, when I say more is still needed to be done, what more would I like to see? Okay, so building a cyber security workforce, promoting public and private partnerships, also raising awareness of cyber security risk that is involved. We see that the more that we're talking about is actually done. All right, Dominique Rume, thank you so much for your time on the breakfast this morning. All right, thank you very much. I'm grateful. Definitely looking forward to see the echo has been more effective in enabling, you know, integration in West Africa. I'm definitely looking forward to that. Well, you know, cyber security is a team sport, right? And opening the platform is timely, as West Africa has been a target for cyber security attacks in recent years. Why is that? Why is West Africa a target? Because technology is growing in the region. And because technology is growing in the region, you definitely see people taking careers into this like certified medical hacking. You start seeing more white hackers, you start seeing more that want to test at their might, just like you have nuclear weapons in South Korea, you have Russia, and you really want to test whatever they are learning, you need to implement it. Even when you want to put it in the market as someone in the tech space, when we put out our first application, our first web app, anything, we test it, we have penetration testing. Even the banks, they do cyber security penetration and firewall testing. So this growing need, because you don't want to go to the bank, you want to sit in the comfort of your home and do these financial transactions. So there's need as the technology is evolving, a lot of risk are happening. And if we're having a cocoa farm where the processes in 10 years remains the same, they need to be good. But since this technology, where the process evolves every three months, every six months, then there's need for this type of education, this type of partnership, this type of collaboration to see that we can amplify our security and cyber defense for the future. Because criminal testings, criminal testings would be taking place from time to time, from tech-savvy youths just like yourself, just like yourself. But I'm sure you are not into crimes. I'm sure you do not test criminally, and you're using your tech knowledge to improve the country and Nigeria's economy. Right, Romain? Yes, yes, as one that is an educator and also especially of theory books, one that has also seen that with positivity to the GDP and also has employees employed, over 11 employees now in the company, we have seen that whatever we do, we bring back the revenue into the country and we're able to use it to better the lives of people. Kudos, Kudos Dominic, proud of you. Dominic Rume, Uri Uri, certified blockchain architect and Metaverse expert has been my guest on the hot topic. Thank you so much, Dominic. Thank you very much for having me. Okay, so that's our package this morning on the breakfast. But before I go, I leave you with our quote of the day. Okay, so the quote of the day is, Technology should improve your life, not become your life. I'll take it again. Technology should improve your life and not become your life. You need to sometimes drop this phone, just switch it off and just keep it somewhere, maybe for one hour, two hours or three hours in a day. It shouldn't become your life. And that's from Billy Cox. Technology should improve your life, not become your life. I am Maureen Menonguese, on behalf of the entire crew, I say thank you for your time and join us tomorrow for another episode of the breakfast. Good morning.