‘I don’t classify myself as a woman in tech, I see myself as a woman in tech,” Doreen Mokoena says about her job: overseeing the .za Domain Name Authority, South Africa’s country internet code.

She has had an unusual career, climbing to the top of the .ZADNA, a state-owned entity under the department of telecommunications. Mokoena, fresh out of high school, started out in police training, hoping to become a detective and later went into forensics. Her aptitude for combatting cybercrime and investigations led to her job at FNB as a digital banking specialist.

In 2017, she moved to .ZADNA to head up internet governance and she represents South Africa internationally on issues such as cybersecurity, policies relating to the fourth industrial revolution and accessibility to the internet.

Mokoena laughs as she explains she now teaches men how to protect themselves online — in a sector that has long been male dominated.

She plays an active role in challenging the status quo for women representation in fields related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics. She has been involved in launching several technology-based, venture-backed start-ups, including the development of young women in cybersecurity, advocating for relief in the event of cyberbullying and raising awareness on .za Domain Names fraud in respect to offensive and abusive usage.

Mokoena believes South Africa is leading the pack when it comes to privacy and online security despite the Protection of Personal Information Act not being fully enacted yet. The legislation regulates the usage of people’s personal data.

She says the majority of companies are compliant with the laws about personal information. Even the widely publicised hack of Liberty Life’s client data in June last year did not cause actual financial harm to people and this can be seen as proof that legislation is working, according to Mokoena. But she believes more needs to be done in regulating political parties and their access to voters’ contact details such as cellphone numbers, which are used to SMS them, encouraging them to vote.

— Tehillah Niselow

LinkedIn: @doreenmokoena