Kiwi cyber safety advances on show

New Zealand's innovative advances in cyber safety are being presented to the world at an international technology conference in Malaysia next week.

Netsafe executive director Martin Cocker, InternetNZ executive director Keith Davidson, Westpac New Zealand's manager of e-business Stu Wollett, and Douglas Harre, senior ICT adviser at the Education Ministry, are on a panel presenting to the Global Knowledge Partnership's (GKP) GK3 conference in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.

Their session, moderated by the chairman of the Wellington-based 2020 Communications Trust Don Hollander, will showcase a successful partnership model that enables New Zealand to address key safety concerns around information and communications technology (ICT).

Mr Cocker said cyber safety was usually seen as a hindrance to the development and advancement of technology but Netsafe had shown that this was not the case.

"We are going there to show them how this can be done as there is a lot of interest," Mr Cocker said.

He said internet safety work being done in New Zealand was innovative and people were keen to hear what was being achieved here.

"We are showing it is not a block to technology but rather a way of increasing uptake."

They want to show that cyber safety is a major confidence booster driving adoption of ICT programmes.

Among the more than 2000 participants that with be attending GK3 will be industry leaders, scientists, technology pioneers and government representatives.

The theme of the conference is to look at emerging people, emerging markets and emerging technologies and see how information can be shared within the group.

GKP is an international network of more than 100 organisations from all sectors public, private and civil society bound by the two common principles of sharing knowledge and building partnerships.

Members and partners work in concert through the GKP network to promote innovation and advancement in knowledge for development and information and communication technologies for development in seven operating regions: Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, Oceania and South Asia.

InternetNZ, Netsafe and 2020 are the only New Zealand members of GKP.

For more check out: www.gkpeventsonthefuture.org/gk3/

- © Fairfax NZ News