IT engineer creates Lao anti-virus programme

A young man from Vientiane has become the first Lao IT engineer to create a Lao anti-virus programme to protect local computer users.

Mr Alexai Siphone, 27, has been providing free editions of the programme, Lao Antivirus Personal 9.0, to users in Laos since January this year.

“The programme will be free for four months once it has been downloaded, and after that users can buy licences for 50,000 kip each,” Mr Alexai told Vientiane Times yesterday.

He explained that the problem of computer viruses was increasing every day, and a number of Lao computers were constantly becoming infected, which was why he had decided to create a protective mechanism for local people.

Mr Alexai completed his studies in mathematics and computing at the Faculty of Science of the National University of Laos in 2003. He went on to work at the ITCOM Company and @com shop as a technician and programming and networking engineer, and now works for the Lao Agriculture Extension project in Vientiane.

“I haven't done any overseas study - I've learnt everything I know here. I've had enough experience through my work to create the programme,” he said.

“I spent time studying virus-infected computers early last year, as the Drontok virus was around at that time, and then I spent five months developing the programme.”

The Lao Antivirus Personal 9.0 has been lauded as the first locally-created and effective programme in Laos , although some IT advisors in Vientiane have warned that it may soon be out of date.

“There are IT engineers all around the world creating viruses every minute, so the Lao antivirus programme could well be too late in its current version,” said an IT advisor from the Science, Technology and Environment Agency, Mr Anousack Souphavanh.

He said that Mr Alexai had come up with some great ideas, but acting alone was never enough; it was important to collaborate with as many IT engineers as possible to find ways to keep up with the world's virus creators.

A number of people have already downloaded Mr Alexai's programme from his website, http://laoav.pt.nu , or copied it from friends, so as to be able protect their own computers.

So far, more than 6,000 users have visited the site and some download the programme to protect their computers.

“Quite a few users have already called to tell me that the programme had found and killed several viruses, and 30 users so far have bought a licence from me,” he said.

By Souknilundon Southivongnorath
(Latest Update October 11, 2007)