Tuvalu conducts its first national cybersecurity capacity review Authors: Mr. Opetaia Simati, Director, Department of ICT, Ministry of Justice, Communications and Foreign Affairs, Tuvalu Dr. James Boorman, Head of Research and Capacity Building, OCSC Dr. Joanne Mihelcic, Research Fellow, OCSC March 2021, Tuvalu, Funafuti. The world has changed. COVID-19 has had a profound and disastrous…
says top achiever of regional Year 13 programme GIRLS need to see more female role models who have either succeeded in science subjects or are flourishing in male-dominated science fields, says Anne Wang June, the highest achiever in last year’s regional Year 13 programme. “This will make it easier for girls to envision themselves taking a similar path…
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted the tourism industry in the Pacific, resulting in the termination or reduced hours for a large portion of tourism workers. In Fiji, over 70,000 tourism workers have been affected – individuals such as Joseph Snodgrass, a former bartender of an award-winning resort in Savusavu and Salote Matanibuka, a former…
Fiji will become a cashless society in the not too distant future, this after the national payment system bill was passed in parliament today. Minister for Local Governments Premila Kumar said the national payment system bill was an important bill designed to ensure Fiji’s banking, payments and securities systems effectively respond to the ongoing evolution…
The Cybercrime Bill 2020 has been passed by parliament. The Bill is a step towards ensuring that cyber technology is utilized as it should and at the same time it does not impede Fiji’s efforts towards social, economic, and political development. Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum, the Bill seeks to give effect to the Budapest Convention…
A 17-year-old girl tried to take her own life in Sigatoka after one of her TikTok videos garnered negative feedback. The teenager is recovering well, says Fiji’s police who are also calling on parents to monitor their children’s social media use. Police did not say when the incident happened, only saying that it was reported…
Looks like it’s no more Mr. Nice Guy. What happens when an unstoppable force hits an immovable object? In a recent speech in Brussels marking International Data Privacy Day, Apple CEO Tim Cook went on the offensive against Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Cook’s speech seems to be a direct response to Facebook’s recent attack on Apple, in which the world’s…
The intense focus on data technology, data sharing and data science in the Pacific islands as of late has promised a myriad of benefits for island Governments through evidence based decision making and policies. Data is good, we agree. It captures past, current and can assist in ways to influence future trends on key development…
In November 2020, our Women in ICT feature was the story behind Coral Sea Cable Repeater ‘R1219’ named after Women in IT Solomon Islands (WITSI) and Information Technology Society Solomon Islands (ITSSI) founding member Suzanne Moli Orudiana. Suzanne’s story on how this all began and the challenges faced as a university student in a foreign…
Another Government organisation is grappling with a cyber-attack, after discovering a threat last month. The Health Research Council, which is responsible for managing around $120 million in funding annually, says it’s addressing “an incident affecting the organisation’s IT environment.” While a spokesperson wouldn’t go into detail about the exact nature of the attack, the Office…