The Russia-Africa Economic and Humanitarian Forum is taking in St. Petersburg from July 26 to 29, 2023 at the Expoforum Exhibition Center. The event is designed to demonstrate various forms and directions of Russian-African cooperation, as well as to determine their development for the long term.

The Forum Program includes panel sessions and thematic events on the most important issues of cooperation with African countries, including in the areas of trade, investment, industry, technology transfer, food and energy security, digitalization, healthcare, education, science, media and youth exchanges.

One of the centers of attraction of the Forum participants was the "Innovation Territory", a project that is a platform for dialogue, debate and discussion of trends with leading experts in the field of innovation and digital transformation. One of the speakers of this event, held under the title "Effective Cybersecurity: Expectations and industry specifics", was Alexander Biryukov, Head of the Representative Office of the FBA EAC in West Africa and Mauritania, General Director of OOO “BIZAF Business in Africa’’.
During the panel discussion, the participants considered the issues of ensuring the security of critical information infrastructure and digital independence against the background of the growth of cyber-attacks. The experts discussed approaches to building industry cybersecurity centers in the regions of Africa, as well as issues of training IT sector personnel for the development and extraction of mineral resources. The discussion unfolded on the following issues: how to focus the tasks of industry centers and guarantee the security of system-forming organizations; what experience from other industries can be used and what will be the fundamental industry differences in the construction of centers; how to develop an industry organizational and methodological base.