Welchman Keen’s Commitment to Cybersecurity Capacity Building in the Developing World

Welchman Keen is ramping up its participation at this year’s ITU Regional Development Forum (RDF) in Bangkok, 13–15 September 2023, as both a panel speaker and sponsor. Being in the business of enabling sustainable, right-sized connectivity solutions, Welchman Keen recognises the significance of events like RDF in fostering digital development and cybersecurity capabilities in developing countries.

One of the key areas of focus at RDF is sustaining cybersecurity capacity and capability building, especially for least developed countries (LDCs) and developing nations. Given their limited resources and infrastructure, these countries struggle to invest in up-to-date cybersecurity measures and remain vulnerable to cyber threats and attacks. Welchman Keen understands the importance of empowering these countries to not only prioritise their digital infrastructure for boosting economic growth, but also to strategically safeguard their national and data sovereignty.

Philip Victor, Managing Director, APAC, will be at RDF to share more on Welchman Keen’s experience in promoting accessible, sustainable, suitable, ethical, safe, and secure connectivity – through delivering its pledge of in-kind cybersecurity capacity building workshops for developing countries and LDCs, as part of ITU’s Partner2Connect Digital Coalition initiative, which builds on Welchman Keen’s track record of delivering capacity building programmes since 2019. Through the Partner2Connect Digital Coalition, Welchman Keen has engaged participants from government agencies, critical infrastructure industries, and non-governmental organisations in the Pacific, Southeast Asia, and South Asia. Moving forward, Welchman Keen will extend its capacity building workshops to countries in Africa over the next few months.

More significantly, Welchman Keen’s capacity building programmes have made positive observable impacts in the participating countries. From increased granular awareness of cyber and digital risks, to moves within government to establish National Cybersecurity Frameworks and Computer Emergency Response Teams, these LDCs and developing countries are progressively strengthening their resilience against evolving cyber threats with actionable projects.

These developments are highly encouraging for the future of digitalisation in the developing world. Welchman Keen looks forward to engaging in the discussions at RDF and sustaining support for the growth and prosperity of the world’s least developed nations.