The US Consulate in Kolkata partnered with NGO Change Initiatives to host a two-day workshop “Be Cybersmart” to train female students of vernacular medium schools and colleges in the city and its suburbs on how to safely navigate the cyberspace, and mitigate cyber-threats, such as cyber bullying, fake emails, fake text messages, hacking of photos, and social media profiles.
The series of workshops kicked off with 65 students of Balia Nafar Chandra Balika Vidyalaya, Garia, and Kamrabad Girls High School, Sonarpur.
The students will take their lessons learned and share them with their schools, colleges, and neighbourhoods with the aim of making their peers and communities cybersmart as well.
As part of this project, a cybersmart mobile application loaded with various aspects of cyber-safety is being developed and will be accessible to all the participants. The application is meant to spread the principles of cyber mitigation to a wide a group of young women and girls.
The participants need to complete the course and share the application with other peers to receive the certificates for participation and course completion.
The application will also be shared with educational institutes, media professionals and community leaders for further action and for consideration of inclusion in the existing curriculum.
American Center Director Elizabeth Lee said, “These workshops aim to create a network and platform for cross-learning between experts and participants like these students to generate awareness of both cybersecurity risks and the tools available to mitigate those threats and facilitate networking among stakeholders on a sustainable basis. This workshop will equip them with the knowledge and hands-on training to identify and combat cybersecurity threats and become more cyber-resilient while using internet and social media platforms.”
Jhumpa Ghosh, Director of Change Initiatives, said, “We will cover a wide range of areas on inculcating good cyber-habits. Our learning modules start with protecting one’s digital identity, such as, how to prevent phones getting hacked, how to prevent social media accounts from getting hacked. It will then go onto areas such as how to carry on safe online conversation, how to detect fake websites, emails, and SMS — we will be covering almost all areas of cyber-safety.”
“Be Cybersmart” is a digital literacy and cybersecurity-focused project conducted in Bengali, that plans to empower 650 female students in the age group of 16-25 years, from Bengali medium high schools and colleges, representing various ethnic, cultural, religious, and social segments of society, including underserved communities.