Canadian-J’can entrepreneur seeks to save youths from scamming

In an effort to save scores of Jamaica’s unattached and at-risk youth from falling prey to scammers through their interest in technology and hacking, Darace Rose, co-founder and chief technology officer, Oppos Inc, has opted to return to the island.

Rose, whose parents are Jamaican, was born in Canada but came to the tropical paradise as a teenager. He is now on a mission to give Jamaican youth the training and opportunity he wishes he got when he was a young man.

He spent his formative years in Trelawny and attended William Knibb Memorial High School from grades eight to 11, but did his elementary schooling in Toronto before coming to Jamaica.

“The reason why it’s important to me, as a child back home [in Jamaica], I did not have a lot of that [training in technology and hacking], and I think it would have helped me to figure out what I wanted to do a lot sooner than not, because sometimes you get distracted with different ways of living that are not necessarily productive or constructive, but you don’t realise that until you’re older. So, now that I’ve realised certain things, I want to be able to educate the kids as soon as possible, so that they can actually get to where I am in half the time [I took],” said the naturalised resident of his parents’ homeland.

Rose further emphasised that he wanted to train youth in computer programming and ethical hacking, while encouraging them to use the technology at their disposal with the fervent hope of finding these same youth opportunities in North America so that they can start to monetise their skills, even if they are still stationed in Jamaica in front of their computer screens.

Wants greater reach

Already Rose is guidng a number of Jamaican youth, but he does not feel satisfied and wants a greater reach and to perhaps partner with the Government through the HEART/NSTA Trust, and entities in the private sector, to better deliver his mentorship service.

His target group includes students enrolled from grades nine and 11 at the secondary level.

He said his love for tech started when he was a young and inquisitive child back in the early 2000s, using social media platforms Black Planet, MSN Messenger, Blackberry Messenger (BBM) and Hotmail in Jamaica.

“I’d always be online as a young person making websites. In fact, one of the first websites I ever built was for Sandals [hotel chain]... . I was overly excited about that and glad for the opportunity, and that’s another reason why I have been saying I have to give back to Jamaica, because they really gave me my start as a technology professional,” Rose told The Gleaner.

“My plan, when it comes to Jamaica, is to start training at-risk kids, kids that may not know necessarily what they want to do yet and are looking at other opportunities in the illicit or black market, and to train them on small cybersecurity services like penetration testing, which is basically trying to break into somebody’s application and be paid [by the application’s owner] for it. Also, infrastructure scanning. Just small technical skills that I know they can monetise and give them a different perspective on life at an early age,” he said.

He does not have a timeline to measure the success of what he is setting out to do, because things take time.

Rose’s business, Oppos Inc, is based in Toronto, Canada and New York City. He said he started getting involved with cybersecurity when others did not want to do their jobs regarding it.

“I’d always been responsible for cybersecurity and compliance at the various roles that I’ve worked in previously. Most notably from Jamaica, I did bring Ample Organics, a cannabis ear piece solution that was leveraged by companies such as Epican and a few other providers,” Rose said.

“Essentially, over time, at all the jobs that I’ve worked at, any time compliance or cybersecurity issues came up, even in the technical department, everybody decided to put their head in the sand or they weren’t available or they didn’t want to do it or they weren’t there. I, over time, learnt or became an expert based on things that others did not want to do from a cybersecurity perspective, and then when cyber became really important around 2019, that’s when I started leveraging artificial intelligence to scale my service business and make it more efficient,” said Rose, who has worked in various technology leadership roles, including management consultant.

He said for the last 18 months, based on the work his company has been doing, Morgan Stanley [an American multinational investment bank and financial services company] “took interest, made a small investment, and that’s what really kind of accelerated our growth”.

Rose told The Gleaner that, at Oppos Inc, his vision was to create a cybersecurity landscape where businesses could thrive securely amid evolving digital threats.

He said there he ensures that his solutions are not only advanced, but are aligned with the best practices for his customers along with global standards for security and privacy.

“Staying ahead is continuously adapting our strategies and ensuring our customers are protected against emerging threats through technology, compliance and forward thinking,” he said.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com