The Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Afamasaga Rico Tupa’i has a lofty goal for Samoa: digital identification for all citizens by the next election.

At the launch of Skyeye’s new e-commerce and economic empowerment platform Maua, Afamasaga not only congratulated the team for taking I.C.T to a new level in Samoa, he also issued a challenge.

Following workshops in Fiji last week on digital ID, Afamasaga proposed to Skyeye that they be the company to develop it for the region.

“I was thinking to myself, Samoa can be the place to develop the right software to build digital ID around the whole Pacific,” he said.

Explaining that the governments work to enable private sector to innovate is well underway, Afamasaga said it’s Samoa’s time to lead the Pacific in ICT.

“I would like to challenge you, Skyeye – lets work together on this." 

“I know you have a lot to do now, but you have more and bigger challenges on your hands now,” Afamsaga said.

“Feel free to just knock on our doors anytime you require help.”

After delivering presentations on Skyeye’s e-commerce platform Maua, Fa’aso’otauloa Sam Saili said he’s absolutely up for the challenge.

“It’s all a matter of will, and motivation,” he said.

“We have to see if the social impact justifies the effort and investment it will take.”

Digital ID has been proven to help with e-commerce and essential service delivery overseas, Fa’aso’otauloa said, so there is no reason it shouldn’t be necessary and useful here.