senior manager & technical lead, Global Forum of Cyber Expertise (GFCE) Africa
Martin has over 30 years of experience working on ICT deployment, innovation, research and development, policy, regulation and legislation. He is currently a Senior Manager and Technical Lead at the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE) Africa and founder of MWK Consult, a tech-startup based in London, UK. He’s currently leading a number of key cyber projects in Africa, including KPMG-GFCE Technical Assistance (World Bank-funded) Project for Togo aimed at enhancing regional cooperation for cyber resilience through the Centre for Coordination and Research in Cybersecurity (ACCRC); African Union (AU)-CSIRT/CERT Project (LuxDev-funded) to secure Africa’s digital infrastructure, and just concluded leading the AU-GFCE Collaboration Project (Bill & Melinda Gates-funded) to enhance cyber capacity building and cyber resilience across all 55 African Union member states. Prior to joining the GFCE, he was the Head of Technical Support & Consultancy (TSC) Division at the Commonwealth Telecommunication Organisation (CTO) in the UK for seven years. He was responsible for managing the delivery of ICT technical support and development assistance to the Commonwealth (which consists of 56 member countries) and beyond. Before joining the CTO, he worked as a Senior Researcher & Technical Lead at British Telecommunications (BT) for 10 years. While at BT he worked on various major projects including the BT 21 Century Next Generation Network, developing ICT security solutions, policy and strategies for BT’s lines of business, including cutting-edge research on future internet architecture, and pioneered development of a global best practice framework for mitigating Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) on the Internet. Martin has been involved in various ICT projects mainly in Europe, the US, the Caribbean, Asia Pacific and extensively in Africa. He is also a technical expert for the European Commission (EC), World Bank, UN, ITU and the GFCE. He has led and delivered a number of national strategies in cyber security, broadband, telecommunication regulation, and digital transformation for a number of organisations in various countries. In addition to his current projects, he has led various other global projects, working with various countries to develop national cybersecurity strategies, national broadband strategies, universal service funding frameworks, CERT/CSIRT, regulations, policies and legislation. Some of these countries include Botswana, Cameroon, Uganda, Fiji, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Senegal, Eswatini, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Seychelles, Namibia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India, The Commonwealth of Dominica, Bermuda, Afghanistan, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, Montserrat, Trinidad & Tobago, South Africa, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Liberia. Martin is accredited for being among the first Kenyan Internet engineers to bring full Internet deployment to Kenya in the mid-90s, while working as Principal Engineer for the African Regional Centre for Computing (ARCC), Nairobi, Kenya. He was instrumental in reviewing various key ICT-related legislation, regulations and policies for the Republic of Kenya. He has a PhD in Communications Engineering and holds several patents. He is an alumni of Egerton University (KE), Nairobi University (KE) and Bristol University (UK), University of Aberdeen (UK), Cambridge University, Judge Business School (UK) and Harvard Kennedy School (USA). |