SomapaIT Returns as Platinum Sponsor of Border Security Week, Cape Town — Deepening Its Commitment to Africa and Presenting Its Digital Arrival Card Solution

Somapa Information Technology Public Company Limited (SomapaIT), a global leader in Smart Border Solutions, is proud to have returned as Platinum Sponsor of the recently concluded Border Security Week, Cape Town, one of the region’s leading forums for practitioner-led dialogue on border security, travel facilitation, and modernisation across Africa. In addition to its headline sponsorship, SomapaIT sponsored the event’s interactive expert panel workshop — bringing its hallmark workshop-style engagement to the programme and convening senior government officials, regulators, and private sector actors for structured, collaborative discussion. The event also gave SomapaIT the opportunity to present its newly launched Digital Arrival Card (DAC) solution to border agencies across the continent.

SomapaIT was represented on the panel by its Executive Vice President for Global Government Engagement, Mr Nigel Manns, who joined fellow experts to explore the practical, institutional, and human dimensions of border reform. The session reinforced a theme consistent across SomapaIT’s engagements: that sustainable modernisation depends on the alignment of technology, policy, and people — and that change management, capacity building, and skills transfer are as essential as the technology itself.

Mr Manns arrived in Cape Town directly from Monrovia. On 30 May 2026, the Liberia Immigration Service (LIS) brought live the Liberia eBorder Solution – Foundation Program at Roberts International Airport — a focused, three-month live entry and exit system developed in partnership with SomapaIT, and the company’s first major engagement in Africa. Eighteen months in the making since the LIS–SomapaIT Memorandum of Understanding in December 2024, the Foundation Program equips officers with automated passport reading, biometric capture, and real-time checking against the LIS persons-of-interest database, while giving LIS Headquarters live visibility of traveller movement data for the first time. As a current, working deployment rather than a concept, it drew considerable interest from delegates in Cape Town.

“It was a privilege to return to Border Security Week as Platinum Sponsor and to take part in this year’s expert panel,” said Mr Nigel Manns, Executive Vice President for Global Government Engagement at SomapaIT. “I arrived in Cape Town directly from Monrovia, where the Liberia Immigration Service has just brought its eBorder Foundation Program live — and that is no accident. We are a service and expertise partner, not a vendor with a product to sell. We design with a country, we build with it, and we transfer the skills so the capability ends up belonging to the nation itself. Thirty years of doing exactly that across Southeast Asia is now being put to work in Africa.”

Bringing the Digital Arrival Card to African agencies

SomapaIT used the event to present its Digital Arrival Card (DAC), launched weeks earlier at the World Border Security Congress in Vienna and built on the principle that “Border Control Begins Before Arrival.” The DAC moves traveller declarations ahead of the journey: information is captured, validated, and risk-assessed before a traveller reaches the border, and shared securely across the agencies that depend on it — immigration, customs, health, quarantine, biosecurity, and revenue. The result is stronger national security, improved compliance, reduced manual processing, and a more predictable experience for legitimate travellers. Like every SomapaIT solution, the DAC is fully configurable to national requirements and can be delivered under a zero-investment, build-operate-transfer (BOT) model, making intelligence-led arrivals processing accessible to nations of any size or budget.

“Digital arrival capability is no longer an administrative convenience — it is becoming the foundation of intelligence-led border management,” said Mr Manns. “When traveller information is collected, validated, assessed, and shared before a person reaches the border, governments can make better decisions earlier, protect their sovereignty, and give legitimate travellers a smoother journey. Border control, in other words, begins before arrival. Bringing that capability to African agencies, under a model that requires no upfront public capital, is exactly why we are here in Cape Town.”

A practical commitment to Africa

SomapaIT’s return as Platinum Sponsor, its participation on the expert panel, the live Foundation Program in Liberia, and the presentation of the DAC together reflect a single, deliberate commitment to the continent — extending into Africa the same collaborative, service-led model the company has spent decades refining in Southeast Asia under its Breaking Through the Global strategy.

“Africa is not a new market for us to enter — it is a set of partnerships we intend to build and keep,” said Mr Manns. “Sponsoring Border Security Week, sitting on the panel, going live in Liberia, and bringing the Digital Arrival Card to the region are all part of the same commitment: to deliver real capability alongside African agencies, on terms that leave that capability in their hands.”

The company extends its gratitude to the organisers of Border Security Week, Cape Town, and to all delegates who engaged with its team, and looks forward to continuing its support for Border Security Week events and its partnership with border agencies across Africa and beyond.

About Somapa Information Technology

Somapa Information Technology Public Company Limited (SomapaIT) is a Bangkok-headquartered border management, immigration, and government technology and services company. Drawing on thirty years of partnership with immigration, customs, and security authorities — built across Southeast Asia and now extending globally under its Breaking Through the Global strategy — SomapaIT combines technology with embedded expertise, skills transfer, and a long-term service commitment. Its Smart Border Solutions screen over 100 million travellers across more than 360,000 flights every year and are delivered with no government capital investment under build-operate-transfer models. The partnership with the Liberia Immigration Service marks the company’s first major engagement in Africa. SomapaIT. Where Security meets Facilitation.

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