Colombia Leads in Competitivity – Notes from Andicom 2009

The world stage is always a good place to stand, if you want to be measured, analyzed or compared. In this regard, I found out a lot about Colombia at an event called Andicom 2009, held recently in Cartagena, Colombia.

This event has been held in Colombia for nearly 30 years, and it brings together telecommunications companies, government organizations, TV broadcasters and any number of other players, including more Internet Service Providers, infrastructure firms and others competing for space in the “spectrum” wars that affect all parts of Latin America and the world. At this year’s event, there were 2600 attendees, 160 media representatives and a wide variety of vendors/participants representing more than 26 countries, including France, the honorary “partner” host in this event.

As such, this particular forum is a good one to take measure of what’s happening in the Andean Region. Dr. Alvaro Uribe Vélez, the current president of Colombia, provided some of the highlights in Colombia, in his closing ceremony speech, October 30, 2009:

• World Bank research shows Colombia has moved to 37th in the world in competitivity, from a former position of 160th in the world.
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  Colombia has leaped past other big Latin American economies in this ranking, now surpassing Brazil, Mexico and Chile.
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  Colombia graduates today thousands of students in M.A. and Ph.D. programs, “on shore” as opposed to “off shore”
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  Colombia generates many other thousands of students earning technical or trade program degrees, through various governmental and educational organizations.
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  Colombia has a master plan for taking its Internet hubs from one, centralized connection (from Bogota) to a hub and spoke system that serves all major cities and their surrounding cities and towns. A project to lay fiber optic cable under the sea to connect its island provinces of San Andres and Providencia, is starting now.
• 
  New spectrums are being opened up for television, IPTV, government/security usage and private industry, based on both the country’s ongoing commitment to public safety and security (in the fights against terrorism, guerrilla violence and narco-trafficers), as well as its commitment to improving the country’s productivity and future prosperity.

While this list is not all-inclusive of the remarks made by Dr. Uribe, or other speakers at Andicom’s closing ceremony, it is a sample of the vision and the future of this Andean country, which today has a population of approximately 46 million, and a widely-diversified economy, one of the leaders in Latin America. At the same time, Dr. Uribe insisted that the world should continue to bring direct financial investment to the country, as this flow of capital, ideas and collaboration by countries, companies and individuals is a vital part of Colombia’s continued growth and drive to expand prosperity to all parts of its population. A key element of his remarks was the drive to provide social impact to all economic strata within the country through telecommunications, Internet and other “tele-services”. These services today facilitate programs and productivity in education, medicine, agriculture and many other parts of the economy.

Finally, one overriding note from Dr. Uribe’s comments was that of security and public safety. Clearly, this is underscored by the greatly-improved security situation throughout Colombia, which has worked diligently to reduce the spaces and places where the FARC and other guerrilla/narco-terrorist organizations can harm citizens and their means of earning a living.

In light of my current employer, SonicWALL’s network security expertise, and the confluence of voice/data/video and other information flowing over IP networks, such as the Internet, private PBX networks, VoIP connections, etc., it is of particular interest to note how much the current prosperity and productivity that Colombia is enjoying is a direct result of the improved security mechanisms and commitments that the Colombian government is successfully employing throughout the nation.

It makes me think that if ever companies and customers were interested in securing their own networks and VoIP transactions, and such, they would be wise to make sure that security and protective measures for all elements of their network infrastructure were in place and kept constantly up to date. Clearly, the threats that have consumed Colombian society for forty years, when reduced and isolated, as has happened during Uribe’s administration, are parallels to the damage and risk that happen to computer networks when left under- or unprotected. Security on the network is a key to productivity, just as security in a nation like Colombia is vital to productivity and prosperity and, yes, competitivity.

In sum, Andicom 2009, in Colombia last week (Oct.28-30, 2009) was an experience that underscores the vibrancy of both the Andean region and Colombia in particular, as well as the ongoing technology trends that drive productivity and prosperity in this part of the world. Let’s hope that such positive trends continue for all concerned.

© Daniel A. Cabrera, TopExec.org, All rights reserved, 2009.

To read this posting in Spanish or Portuguese, please look on these blogs:

http://sonicwallblog.blogspot.com/ (Spanish)

http://sonicwallbrasil.blogspot.com/ (Portuguese)

Presidential Security - Good Enough for You?

I recently traveled to Mexico City, in advance of Mr. Barack Obama, who arrived the next day with his entire presidential toolkit of vehicles, helicopters, Airforce One and related elements of world class travel. I was there on business, to foster the sales and marketing of my company's products with local partners and wholesalers. Mr. Obama was there to foster partnerships of a different nature, but I found some notable parallels. Bear with me as I mention a few, and how it might be worth considering for you or your company in today's menacing world of threats, spies and globalized communications and network connections.

Mr. Obama travels everywhere with a fleet of vehicles that is specially built to resist arms fire, bombs, chemical attack and who knows what else. His limousine is known as "The Beast" for its weight, girth and protective armor. He is safe from most any kind of threat while riding in this vehicle. He is, in effect, safe because of the protections provided to him in what we, at SonicWALL (my current employer), might called Unified Threat Management (UTM). By using the types of security protections that UTM offers, the president is sure to have no worries about his personal safety, when riding in the Beast.

At the same time, given Mr. Obama's penchant for staying connected to his loved ones and his inner circle via a Blackberry device, it stands to reason that he needs to be sure about his Email Security, so that no one reads his communications, nor infects them with viruses, spyware, malware or other dangerous worms that would compromise Mr. Obama's top-secret communications. This is another parallel with what SonicWALL offers --- a full suite of Email Security capabilities to protect email, which is today's most vital communications tool used by millions, if not billions of people around the world.

How about his remote connections to the White House, or to the Department of Defense data sources? How about the need for secure remote connections for his staff, the military and others, including Mr. Obama to data sources and servers that must remain off limits to all but those who are ID and Password-authorized to enter? This is where even a president would need a solution to provide SSL/VPN secure remote access capabilities from anywhere in the world to the data sources needed for day-to-day work and productivity. Notably, SonicWALL offers this, as well, and any of our customers can have presidential-quality connections this way, too.

Finally, if I'm allowed to draw the complete analogy, what does the President of the United States of America do for continuous back-up and business continuity? How does he handle it if an important speech he's working on for the Mexico City meeting or the subsequent Latin American summit in Trinidad and Tobago gets wiped out inadvertently on his PC? What happens if his hard disk gets corrupted and he loses everything, including multi-trillion dollar budget spreadsheets or top-secret secrets concerning what kind of dog his children will get? (This was a very closely-guarded secret, you know). He absolutely has to have a system that allows for a constant and seamless back-up of every creation and/or modification of data --- all words, numbers, photos, that are part of his important presidential duties. This we can provide as well, with SonicWALL's CDP product for back-up, recovery and business continuity. No missing tapes, no 13-minute blank spots (a la Richard Nixon) if you're using this type of continuous back-up technology.

So, even though my time and that of Mr. Obama was short in Mexico City, we both brought to Latin America our best arsenal of security practices. Each of us traveled with the tools needed to protect our communications, secure our connections, safeguard our email and back up our data, in case of some nefarious threat that might have compromised the free world. Each of us, I would say, arrived back in the USA, able to say, "Mission Accomplished" (apologies to George W. Bush).

Thoughts, comments or opinions? Interested in knowing more? Drop me a line or post a comment, and thanks for reading.

Other blogs of interest:

www.TopExec.org/TopExecBlog
http://sonicwallbrasil.blogspot.com/
http://sonicwallblog.blogspot.com/

©Daniel A. Cabrera, TopExec.org, all rights reserved, 2009.