Steven Matainaho Chair of GFCE Working Group on Cyber Security Culture & Skills

Mr Steven Matainaho is the Secretary for the Papua New Guinea Department of Information Communication Technology.

For the last two years, he has led the reform of Papua New Guinea’s Digital Sector through the formulation of the Digital Transformation Policy, the Digital Government Act 2022, and the Digital Government (Medium Term) Plan 2023 – 2027. Mr Steven Matainaho holds a Master of Business Administration (2015) from Wuhan University of Technology (People’s Republic of China), is certified in Cloud Infrastructure Technology, and holds a Bachelor of Science in Applied Physics with Electronics and Instrumentation (2002) from the Papua New Guinea University of Technology.

At the age of 14, Mr Matainaho self-taught himself as programmer, and this eventually led to his engagement in several capacities within Papua New Guinea’s Higher Education sector, initially as a lecturer in Engineering Mathematics and Physics at the PNG University of Technology (2006) and later as a Lecturer in Physics and Object-Oriented Programming at the Pacific Adventist University (2010).

In the last decade, Mr Matainaho has worked as an Assistant Director within the PNG Department of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology and contributed to the formulation and implementation of various legislative and policy reforms including PNG’s Higher Education (General Provisions) Act 2014, National Higher and Technical Education Plan 2014 – 2023, and the reforming the National Higher Education Student Scholarship Program. In 2017, Mr Matainaho led the roll out of Papua New Guinea’s National Online Selection System and the National Online Application System.