The second edition of Coffee & Circumvention held at the Aiivon Hub, Wuse 2, Abuja and had 22 people in attendance. TechHer hosted the meeting with support from ACSIS Nigeria.  

The event was moderated by Techher’s Soniya Dawarga who welcomed the participants, gave brief introductions and stated the objectives of the meet up. Soniya opened up discussions with a question on what the participants thought the purpose of Social Media was. Audience responses ranged from networking to leisure to knowledge building. We had a few people who said ‘stalking people’ was the main purpose of Social Media!

Mr. Samaila Bako, a cyber-security awareness trainer and a member of the Cyber Security Experts Association of Nigeria, who was the lead speaker, spoke on the dangers and etiquette of using Social Media and some preventive measures we could apply to protect ourselves on Social Media platforms. He also talked about the necessity of protecting your space online which sparked up lively conversations on the ideas of blocking, muting and reporting accounts and handles on Social Media. Samaila emphasized the need for respecting people’s privacy online, the most important of which was receiving consent to post other people’s information online, even if it is just a photo.

There was quite a bit of discussion over the issue of online scams and fraud - why they are so prevalent online in Nigeria and why so many people fall victim to them. On that, Samaila noted that online scams and frauds almost always had insiders from the organizations involved and that because they were no defined laws or penalties to curb online fraud and scams, Nigerian organizations, especially commercial banks, were lax in addressing the issue, which made them culpable. He advised a measure of caution and investigation before conducting transactions online, no matter how legitimate the parties involved seemed.   

Soniya rounded up the meet up by thanking the attendees and extending an invitation for collaborations on themes, hosting and speakers for subsequent C&C meetings. 

The discussions were brought to a close at 6:50 pm.  The participants carried on quite a bit of networking as snacks, drinks and gifts were passed around. The event rounded up at 7:00pm.   

You can see more photographs from the event here.