The university is a Cybersecurity e-Skills CoLab, a NEMISA funded initiative aimed at enhancing digital skills competence for sustainable socio-economic development in South Africa.
Specifically, the university through the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, is expected to work towards the establishment of a provincial e-Skills knowledge production and coordination collaborator (CoLab).
As the Cybersecurity e-Skills CoLab, UMP will coordinate the provincial improvement and application of e-Skills across small businesses and public entities such as Health, Agricultural sectors, Education and Civil Society, to deliver sustainable impact against the goals of the Medium Term Strategic Framework (MTSF), the National Integrated ICT Policy, SA Connect and the National Development Plan.
Head of School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Professor Tembisa Ngqondi says the university is deployed to ensure that communities are empowered to understand how to protect their information as they effectively use their digital tools.
“Wherever you go you see how a two-year-old operates a digital tool. And then you ask yourself, do we really have enough security to make sure this is not going to be harmful to them?”
“As a CoLab, we actually have to make sure that we improve their skills, that is the main purpose of our existence as a CoLabs in Mpumalanga.”
Working with Communities
The Cybersecurity e-Skills CoLab has already coordinated the provincial improvement and application across small businesses and public entities.
Professor Ngqondi explains that her department has done some work in certain areas. “We have started to work with some of the communities like the Department of Agriculture, where we did training for the extension officers. We also did training for NEMISA staff members. This project targets all the communities, we are not focusing only on people in certain areas," she added.
“We also do empowerment projects with SMEs and also work with government officials. We identify skills shortage that addresses the target we are looking for, which is in our case cyber security.” Professor Ngqondi further explains that Cybersecurity is a holistic approach, which cuts across everything connected to the network and the digital tools."
“We cannot talk about Cybersecurity without talking about digital integration and digital literacy. When you go to all the CoLabs you will hear about e-Literacy and digital integration that is our forces and all other components that actually enrich that particular drive of literacy.”
UMP CoLab Guidelines
- Identify the areas of scanning and conduct e-Skills gap analysis.
- Construct a network of multi-stakeholders from provincial and national communities to promote the e-skilling of the people of Mpumalanga.
- Facilitate co-ordination for training based on appropriately focused curricula.
- Co-ordinate and deliver research relevant to e- skilling needs and evaluation of the impact of e-skilling projects which will lead to the development of a national Monitoring and Evaluation Framework and a taxonomy for research into e-Skills development.
- Function as a knowledge clearinghouse for the multi-stakeholder network – be both a collector and aggregator of data.
- Create the opportunity for dialogue through seminars on ‘burning issues’ such as Creative Industries, Cybersecurity, IoT, Big data, etc.
- Encourage the development of e-skills to promote Creative Industries.
- The Cybersecurity e-Skill CoLab at UMP project aims to achieve the e-Skills mandate by embracing research and engagement through e-Skills, with a focus on Cybersecurity.
- Community Engagement: This will involve the CoLab stakeholders.
- Research: Is our core driver for positioning the Cybersecurity e-Skill CoLab at UMP in achieving the mandate.
Cybersecurity is a thematic area that focuses on the following:
- Cybersecurity awareness.
- Cybersecurity development framework.
- Cybersecurity policy guidelines.
- Cybersecurity digital skills and training.
- Cybersecurity for Data Science, Computer Ethics and e-Literacy.
@ Story by Cleopatra Makhaga. Pictures Courtesy of NEMISA