According to Mr. Arnold Mangeni, the Director of Information Security at NITA-U, every week, the quiz runs with two questions on different cyber security themes targeting both individual entrants and group winners.

Quiz entries are accepted through NITA-U’s Twitter, Instagram and YouTube platforms and winners are elected based on engagements as votes from fellow Netizens. Once a Question is posted, the best 2 answers with the highest engagements win UGX 500,000 and UGX 3,000,0000 accompanied by a gift hamper for individual and group entrants respectively.

“The groups of 5 submit a video discussing a selected theme for that week. To be more inclusive, we have set strict guidelines to ensure that among the group of 5 there’s at least a female. Groups that submit all-male participants don’t meet the winning criteria.”

Anorld Mangeni – Director Infomartion Security, NITA UGANDA

Originally designed to be a proper physical School Quiz, NITA-U couldn’t execute it since schools are still closed and the format had to be adjusted to online. They had planned it as a hands on Cybersecurity awareness campaign for students but due to the COVID-19 circumstances, it is thriving online. 

“We know students are at home and many are online. This Quiz is a way to get them to positively be involved in the said quiz and at the same time create awareness about Cyber Security for themselves and their peers in a way they can understand.”

Added Mangeni

Among the winners, Andrew Mugisha and Bwire Ian Jeremiah were awarded UGX 500,000 each as the 1^st week individual winners. In a like manner, a group consisting on Brian Amanya, Tugume Hastings, Natseli Godfrey, Murangira Boris and Namilo Habibah emerged winners with a cash prize of UGX 3,000,000.

The winning group published a short video demonstrating the importance of tightening phone security with passwords, and advanced mobile operating system features with presentation of potential risks if not well set.

For week two, individual entrants were required to describe malware with highlights on common types of malware users can easily identify and avoid. On the other hand, group entrants were required to recreate a Tendo animation project (shared by NITA-U) about common hacking attempts.

Janat Kwagala, Sarah Namiiro emerged as the individual contest winners, while the group of Kenneth Kasasira, Ndyamuhaki Barham, Mugisha Simon, Ajo Clement and Mugenyi Suleiman won the UGX 3,000,000 winning group grand prize. 

As a weekly campaign, Quiz winners for the Week 3 trivia will be announced on Friday 10^th December 2021 ahead of the final week which will usher in the festive season. With positive responses from winners, NITA-U’s cyber security trivia serves as a perfect festive present.

“I believe in Santa now. I thought he was just in stories and I had always wished for him to check in on me. NITA-U came in the form of Santa this year for me and I am grateful. On top of providing me an opportunity to grasp Cybersecurity and teach my peers, I got cash to celebrate my Christmas.”

Kenneth Kasasira, one of the winners said. 

Well, with the ongoing Be Safe Online Cyber Security awareness month , NITA-U pledges to continue delivering on its promise of safeguarding Ugandans on every step of the way. As the campaign goes on, you can follow active feed through the agency’s dedicated website: www.besafeonline.ug or social media handles: @besafeonlineug on Twitter and Instagram respectively.

The E-pass app is intended to help the Ministry of Health track and geo-fence movements of COVID 19 patients under home-based care in a bid to reduce the number of non-critical patients that get admitted to Hospitals. By standard, the app helps the ministry know where a quarantined patient is moving to, their status, and avail needed health support due to limited resources in hospitals.

At the height of the pandemic, many people would be rushed to health centers including those that were not in critical conditions. With such situations, health centers were overwhelmed with high-walk in patients and also stretched the already limited resources in hospitals.

So, the Ministry of Health decided to introduce a home-based care policy in which non-critical patients would be cared for and monitored from the comfort of their homes or other safe locations outside hospitals. Now, with the E-Pass app developed by MTN Uganda in partnership with NITA-U, patients will be tracked down easily and reached out to when need be.

Speaking at the launch of the app, MTN Uganda General Manager for MTN Business Ibrahim Ssenyonga said the new app will go a long way in helping the government better manage resources as non-critical patients will be monitored remotely from their locations of isolation.

“This new app will alert the ministry of health designated officials, if in case a patient under surveillance goes outside of the planned location boundaries. That way, the ministry can minimize further spread, but also be able to locate some of the contacts in the areas where the patient might have veered off to,”

Mr. Ssenyonga said.

Development of the E-Pass App cost about UGX 460 million and the contributed tracking package includes 400 smartphone handsets that come pre-installed with the app and will be used for monitoring by the Ministry of Health officials. Aside that, the App can be accessed via MTN Uganda’s designated shortcode *260# that will best allow support for COVID19 Paeitnts and health care officials alike.

The NITA-Uganda Executive Director Dr Hatwib Mugasa inked that they are pleased with the solution as it serves as a game-changer in the overall management of the COVID19 pandemic.

“We are very proud because of the local capacity we have to quickly develop an app of this kind that will change the way we manage the COVID 19 pandemic in the country. This coming at a time when the vaccine is already in the country is a big boost in government efforts to curb and minimize the spread of the pandemic,”

Said Dr. Hatwib – The Executive Director NITA-U

In addition, the Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Diana Atwine thanked MTN Uganda and NITA Uganda for the new intervention saying that it takes collective effort from everyone to be able to defeat the COVID19 pandemic effects.

“It is true that management of patients was quite a nightmare for government and the health centers. We were having many people coming to hospitals that didn’t need to be there. And these were taking space for those that needed to be there the most. So this solution is very welcome and it is a win for us as a country in the management of this pandemic,”

Said Diana Atwine

Statistically, MTN Uganda has stayed in the support light for the Ministry of Health’s activities to help COVID19 Patients and lives affected due to the pandemic effects by donating money, cars, and subscribing their data bundle prices to favour all audiences. By this fashion, other telcos like Airtel, Africell also followed suit by donating to the COVID19 task force, and now, a new App has risen from MTN Uganda’s engineering wing to track down patients which is a WIN-WIN for customers and the Yello telco.

As a toast, NITA Uganda made slight changes with its board chairman shifted to a new position and the authority executive director Mr. James Ssaka maintains his position as a Secretary on the board.

The official swearing-in ceremony was held yesterday at the Information Access Centre Wing housing the Ministry of ICT & National Guidance after an official board reveal to the public held eadlier last month at the Uganda media centre.

During the ceremony, the Incoming Board chairman Mr. John Musinguzi stressed one of the new NITA-U goals as strengthening service delivery to attain the body’s key fundamentals to harness opportunities for faster economic growth.

The new board is inaugurated in a time frame when NITA-U has stretched its wings in Uganda through [rpoejcts implementation. The authority’s major step front was its Phase IV backbone launch braced by H.E President Museveni as its recently unveiled Data center cruised in another window of recovery data sites.

Hence, with a new board to drive the ICT authority for the next 5 years, NITA’s authoritative strategy has now been shifted from just an infrastructure based wing to a full-throttle IT delivery provider with its new Vision ” Lives transformed through e-services delivery “

Last week, the Body celebrated 50 years of its existence in an event that was braced by IT professionals and certified sector players for a 3-day long conference ignited by NITA Uganda as the main partner onboard.

During the conference, key speakers like the NITA-U head of eGovernance Vivian Ddambya inked their top future technological predictions amidst a 3 day scrutineering on IT and digital security in this fast-pace generation.

The event was kicked off by the Kampala ISACA President MR Hercules Bizure who inked the role of cybersecurity as the middle element in the 4th industrial revolution digital digest as he commented.

With all the immense digital opportunities today, we’re seeing an exponential growth in cyber attacks. This is why and the time for organizations to prioritize having a cyber security strategy as part of their business strategy

Hercules Bizure – President ISACA Kampala

Among the key points of discussion for the conference included the NITA-U ignited data protection law that was recently turned into a law by H.E Yoweri Kaguta Museveni__The President of Uganda. The law was discussed by the NITA’s Director of regulation and legal services Ms. Stella Alibateese.

The law which was established as a digital protection element is aimed at benefiting both individuals and companies on their data shared across the digital waves. As a Spice, Ms. Stella asserted that it further protects the use of personal data collected by organisations for purposes of private usage.

In an event where an organization discloses private data as a public venture without a court order, then the data privacy and protection law would step in to prosecute the violating institution. This applies to Nude picture leaks where the affected party would have the right to sue the initial sender without further question.

On the Sate of Cyber Security in the Digital revolution path

In a master class hosted by Musa Wesusa, the Managing Director at Sentinel Africa Consulting. eh drew more light on the new levels cybersecurity professionals must attain to rule deal with the low awareness and more rising cases of cyber attacks.

The master class was titled “How to build, implement and maintain an effective cybersecurity awareness program in organization”. Among the key take away points included the fact that password safety is now a core component in a digital era.

The same way you can check the strength of your password with a tool we previously shared, Is the same path you every digital user must choose to keep a password as safe as its strength crawls to. A majority of users cling to one password for almost all internet accounts putting safety and privacy at risk.

So, through the conference, major stakeholders stated that cybersecurity is still a rising need and more professionals could guarantee a safer global network as the future draws closer to new 5G standards. Nonetheless, with ISACA celebrating 50 years of its existence, its impact continues to draw more professionals riding in the audit league.

The new state of the at data center located in the heart of Jinja was officially opened by the head of state HE President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni. In his remarks, the president praised the tier III shape off as one of the bes IT invetions that will drive the country’s economy a notch higher with unitturpted service delivery from the hosted systems at the new Data Center.

Unlike any pther data centres in Uganda, the country has not had any known tier III version with Tier II’s and Tier I’s housed in Kmapala and telcommunication compnaies sharing private slots for cloud productivity for the past few years. Except for the fact that Raxio unveiled plans to construct a Tier III data center in Namanve last year, NITA-U’s launched version makes it the first of its kind in Uganda.

But Why a Tier III data center and how different is it?

NITA-U embarked on a cloud project launched in 2017 and finalised last month in June to improve on the rate of data availabality and uptime of Governement services in Uganda. However, with funding from World Bank under the regsional communication Infrastructe program (RCIP) the IT authority upgraded the exsiting cloud to a tier III design data version.

A Tier III data center is a location with redundant and dual-powered servers, storage, network links and other IT components designed with no single point of failure in its achirtecture. It is also known as as a Level 3 data center combining tier I and Tier II infrasturcture for upgraded network perfomance with an uptime rate of upto 99.95%

Luckily we got a chance to tour the NITA-U tier III data center in JInja, and its unique twist comes in from the size and industry standard setting it holds. The redundacy levels implemented at the data center make it the first state of the art invetion to hold IT systems with no point of failure as the NITa-U Executive Director commented.

Uganda now has the capacity to host all Government applications and Data. Hosting Data locally and centrally will continue to improve security, cost and boost efficiency. Plus, the country is in charge of its own data as opposed to international hosting which comes with security risks

NITA-U Executive Director James Saaka