Last Friday, the Global Security Challenge (GSC) – a Dragon’s Den-style event and central hub for security innovators, start-ups and investors around the globe – announced this year’s Best Security Start-Up and Best Security SME: mPedigree and iWebGate. (Previous winners and finalists have gone on to raise over $80 million investment as a result of the challenge.)mPedigree and iWebgate emerged from a rigorous selection process which included pitching to judges before a live audience of investors, industry, government, VCs and peers. Both were identified as the best models of security innovations from a field of over 350 start-ups and have been awarded prize packages totaling $500,000.Ghana’s mPedigree Network is the first system of its kind enabling consumers and patients to verify the authenticity of their medicines by sending a free text message of the unique, product-embossed codes. The mPedigree approach is far more secure than holograms, requires neither specialist equipment nor training, is free to access for consumers, and a fraction of the cost of radio-frequency identification (RFID) and EMID techniques.After patients buy drugs, they scratch off a panel to reveal a 10-digit code that they send to the mPedigree Network via free SMS message. Just a few seconds later, patients receive a text message authenticating the quality of pharmaceuticals at the point of purchase.The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that in many emerging markets, up to 30% of drugs are compromised. The growing sophistication of cheap graphic software and hardware kit means that packaging, including traditional security features such as holograms, can be perfectly replicated by even smalltime counterfeit operators making the need for a highly robust but economically feasible system urgent.“If a consumer gets a 'NO' message it means the pharmacist is selling fake medicines. That is a criminal offence. Most pharmacists will replace the drug,” says Ashoka Fellow and mPedigree founder Bright Simons. “This is a clear sign that African technology has come of age and also that innovators in Africa addressing complex, difficult and unique challenges can, notwithstanding limited resources, deliver world class results.Coming fresh off the successful, world-changing G-20 SME Finance Challenge – the only concrete deliverable of the Seoul summit with a numerical commitment of resources by governments – is another victory for small and medium-sized businesses. iWebGate, based in Australia and the UK, won the Best Security SME award for developing an online security product which aims to enable businesses to improve the overall security of trusted networks while keeping it simple to do business on the Internet.Due to significant cost and technical complexities most SMEs connect perimeter firewall ports directly to applications/systems residing on their trusted network. A very risky process as software and application security is rarely 100% secure.The iWebGate platform, which is cheap and easily implementable, mirrors the trusted network and supplies all the key services normally provided and located in the trusted network. Undesirables penetrating perimeter defenses remain stuck in a ‘ghost network’ with nothing of value available and a lack of physical stepping stones to access the trusted network or launch outward bound surrogate attacks on other networks.For more on the Global Security Challenge (GSC) click here. Photo courtesy of mPedigree
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