Eric Akumiah

FIRST (Ghana)​

Eric Akumiah is a Chevening Scholar with a Master’s in Communications Manage-ment (widely regarded as the MBA for the telecoms industry) from Strathclyde Busi-ness School, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. He brings extensive experience in IT infrastructure, digital transformation, and cybersecurity, with a career spanning more than two decades across Africa and beyond.

He played a pivotal role in Ghana’s national ICT development, supporting the rollout of LTE and fibre optic infrastructure, as well as data centre systems under the World Bank–funded E-Ghana and E-Transform projects.

Between 2012 and 2016, Eric also served as Ghana’s national focal point for cyber-security. In this capacity, he led the development of Ghana’s first National Cybersecu-rity Policy and Strategy (2016) and established the country’s national Computer Se-curity Incident Response Team (CERT-GH) in 2014, which he managed for three years.

Currently, Eric serves as Africa Regional Liaison for FIRST.org, under the UK For-eign, Commonwealth & Development Office’s (FCDO) funded FIRST Africa Regional Liaison initiative. In this role, he supports national computer security and incident re-sponse teams (CSIRT) across Africa in developing and strengthening cybersecurity incident response and capacity-building programs.

He is also the co-founder and Director of the Africa Cybersecurity and Digital Rights Organisation (ACDRO), a regional initiative dedicated to advancing cybersecurity resilience and safeguarding digital rights across the continent.