Lobsang Sither in a file photo taken on 2 October 2020. Courtesy of Lobsang Sither
Tibet Sun Newsroom
McLEOD GANJ, India, 6 December 2020
Tibetan cybersecurity expert Lobsang Sither has been recognised as one of the ‘Changemakers of Tomorrow’ for working to build a brighter future, by UK-based Wired Magazine.
Sither is among 32 people shortlisted for this year’s honour, nominated by some well-known personalities spanning scientists, technologists, founders, and activists, to name a person whose work they think deserves greater recognition.
“I was pleasantly surprised. I felt honoured to be on the WIRED smart list. This helps highlight the issue of Tibet and the work that Tibet Action Institute does to bring digital security solutions to the Tibetan community,” Sither commented on receiving the recognition.
Personalities like Sunder Pichai, Alphabet CEO; Sarah Gilbert from Oxford Covid-19 vaccine research; and Joshua Wong, Hong Kong pro-democracy activist entered nominations for the “Changemakers of Tomorrow”.
Ron Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, nominated Lobsang Sither, who is the digital security programme director at the Tibet Action Institute.
With a software engineering background from London Metropolitan University, UK, Sither has been a researcher on cybersecurity issues facing the Tibetan Community for over a decade.
Chinese hacking of exile Tibetans have been reported for many years, with a cyberespionage campaign using malware and Trojans aimed at causing damage and disruption, and stealing information.
Over a few hundred thousand trolls known as the 50-Cent Army are another part of state-sponsored machinery at work to disrupt events that are deemed unfavourable for China, and to promote Chinese propaganda.
As one of the key people behind the Tibet Action Institute, Sither has had to fend off a constant barrage of targeted espionage attacks from China against the entire Tibetan diaspora, and especially the Tibetan community in Dharamshala, India, where he lives.
“Tibetans have been targeted both inside Tibet and in the diaspora by constant cyber espionage, and I believe that our work at Tibet Action Institute is able to bring out solutions which are able to combat some of the threats,” Sither said.
Along with his colleagues, Sither has pioneered one of the first civil society computer emergency response teams, called TibCERT, to share threat intelligence information among NGOs, researchers, and activists in the Tibetan community.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet nominated Ibrahim Ouassari, co-founder of Molengeek, with a mission to make technology and entrepreneurship accessible to everyone. Ibrahim is a self-taught entrepreneur who is helping others to use technology to transform their communities in Brussels, Padua, and Amsterdam.
Joshua Wong, the well-known Hong Kong pro-democracy activist, chose Parit Chiwarak, a Thai student activist.
what did Sither guy do? any desktop or android/ios apps he developed?
You can search for him on Facebook. He is currently running for Tibetan Parliamentary member, so you can see his achievements for our community and Digital Rights in general.
You can never compare London Met University with IIT. IIT is filled with world’s smartest scientific brains while LMU is for poor british people who can’t pay the normal fee. His university van never be compared to oxford or cambridge or Harvard.
Most universities in the West are fake. You pay your £9,0000 for each semester per year, professors will pass you to the next semester. I know some chinese who can’t speak proper english in New York, and they still go back to china with MSC in Public Health or international relations. This is all so fake. Chinese people or students are so bad in English that a Tibetan in 10th class can easily beat someone doing master in England or USA. Trust me. Chinese students are just cash cows with no talent while Tibetans shine out.
it is unclear what this guy did exactly in the tech domain. did me make an adblock program for youtube? what did this Sither guy do to get his name along with google chief sundar pichai who passed IIT test which is the most difficult entrance exam in the world for 18 year old?
Sundar Pichai of Google was known to have shown exceptional skills in mathematics in his teens. ‘what did our sither do?
Please specify sither’s achievements in the tech security domain. then i can trust.
This is big news because google chief Sundar Pichai is there. And this guy belongs to a very small organization called CTA.
I don’t understand why Tibetans are so quiet about this. This should be on RFA and VOA on video media.
This is crazy. I think Tibetans are a bunch of jealous primates. Earlier, Nyima Lhamo became the first Tibetan to see Trump. But everybody was quiet.
Celebrating the success of ordinary Tibetans doesn’t downplay HH Dalai lama’s achievement.