After a much-anticipated wait and weeks of careful planning and collaboration, Securemetric’s virtual event ‘Digital Integrity Through PKI’ took place on 29 & 30 June 2021, and it was a huge success! Thanks to the overwhelming response from the public and support from partners, the team surpassed its original target of 200 sign-ups to a whooping 1,001 registrations.
The 2-day event commenced with an opening speech by Securemetric’s CEO and Executive Director Edward Law, who warmly welcomed all speakers and attendees from all over the region. Edward broached the topic of technology in a world post-covid, and encouraged attendees to join the Breakout Room sessions at the end of the event to discuss ideas with the speakers themselves. He also shared his thoughts and findings on the current PKI landscape in the Southeast Asian region and how certain government initiatives may drive a wider adoption of PKI.
Following Edward’s enlightening speech was a session by Tomas Gustavsson, Primekey’s Founder. Tomas highlighted some of the major advancements in PKI as well as the role technology plays in obtaining and securing information in this digital era. Next in line was an in-depth session by Muralidharan Palanisamy, Chief Solutions Officer at AppViewX with his talk titled ‘Managing Certificate Life Cycles in the Face of Exploding Machine Identities’. As technology evolves and revolutionises, the number of machines we create, deploy and rely on grows and Murali pointed out that in a few years, there’ll be thrice the number of network devices on Earth than there are humans, not to mention the millions of IoT devices that are connected to the internet daily. He explained how certificate lifecycle management system is advantageous in many ways, including reduced outages and advanced threat deterrence capabilities.
Still on the topic of digital advancements, PrivyID’s Founder & CEO, Marshall Pribadi took the virtual stage to discuss how PrivyID helps companies bridge the digital gap and ensure not only a seamless digital experience but one that both consumers and businesses in Indonesia and beyond can place their trust in. His session was followed by Joe Seah, Chief Commercial Officer at Innov8tif on how to best eliminate uncertainties in digital businesses. Another engaging session was conducted by Sheung Chi-Ng from Utimaco on the evolution of hardware security modules (HSM) and how it drives digital transformation.
The day’s sessions were capped off with a talk by Securemetric’s very own Vice President of Regional Sales – Wo Swee Teck – on the concept of unifying all digital IDs to a single ID. Following an exciting day of eye-opening speeches, lessons and talks, the attendees made their way to the virtual Breakout Rooms to pick the brains of the speakers and engage other audience members to exchange ideas and views on what was shared.
Day 2 of the event begun with Poon Shou Xin’s session titled ‘Empowering Businesses’. Poon serves as the Head of Industry Engagement, National Digital Identity at Singpass – an agency under GovTech Singapore and in his session, he delved into how citizens’ digital identities are managed on the Singpass platform and how hundreds of local government agencies and businesses can be easily and safely accessed. Next was a talk by Joon Hyuk Lee, Market Development Director – APAC at FIDO Alliance on how FIDO provides simpler and stronger authentication in a password-less way.
It was then Jonathan Bailey turn to shed some light on a topic that piqued the interest of many attendees – digital health passports! Jonathan is CommonPass’ Asia Pacific Project Manager as well as Project Manager – APAC at the Commons Project Foundation. Thanks to CommonPass’ innovative technologies, the future of safe travel looks promising. Just before the attendees dispersed for a lunch break, Sing-Man Ho, General Manager at Certizen Limited spoke on root inclusion in products and browsers.
The afternoon sessions continued with an informative and lively session by Sanjay Sidhu, Executive Director, Advisory at BDO Malaysia who elaborated on all things audit – from challenges to processes to strategies, followed by Crest Infosolutions Pte Ltd’s CEO Hemant Prasad on how organisations can ensure remote communications between teams thanks to CloudMeet – Crest’s enterprise solution for video conferencing, online meetings, screen-sharing and webinars.
Last but certainly not least, Chris Allen, Cryptomathic’s Senior Solutions Architect talked about the business challenges of cryptography and the strategies organisations can deploy to achieve real-world crypto-agility. More engaging Breakout Room sessions ensued that saw audience members from all over the region partake to share their thoughts for the day’s sessions whilst connecting with other like-minded professionals.
The event wrapped up with a few short closing remarks by Securemetric’s Marketing Team – the organisers behind the event – who thanked all speakers, participators and attendees for making the event a success.