US Consulate Kolkata partners with NGO Change Initiatives to host workshop to train female students on tackling cyber-threats

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 colleges and schools within the metropolis and its suburbs on how to safely navigate the our on-line world, and mitigate cyber-threats, similar to cyber bullying, pretend emails, pretend textual content messages, hacking of pictures, and social media profiles.

The sequence 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 classes discovered and share them with their colleges, schools, and neighbourhoods with the purpose of creating their friends and communities cybersmart as nicely.

As a part of this undertaking, a cybersmart cell utility loaded with numerous facets of cyber-safety is being developed and shall be accessible to all of the contributors. The utility is supposed to unfold the ideas of cyber mitigation to a large a gaggle of younger ladies and ladies.

The contributors want to full the course and share the appliance with different friends to obtain the certificates for participation and course completion.

The utility can even be shared with academic institutes, media professionals and neighborhood leaders for additional motion and for consideration of inclusion within the present curriculum.

American Center Director Elizabeth Lee stated, “These workshops purpose to create a community and platform for cross-learning between specialists and contributors like these students to generate consciousness of each cybersecurity dangers and the instruments out there to mitigate these threats and facilitate networking amongst stakeholders on a sustainable foundation. This workshop will equip them with the data and hands-on coaching to determine and fight cybersecurity threats and change into extra cyber-resilient whereas utilizing web and social media platforms.”

Jhumpa Ghosh, Director of Change Initiatives, stated, “We will cowl a variety of areas on inculcating good cyber-habits. Our studying modules begin with defending one’s digital id, similar to, how to forestall telephones getting hacked, how to forestall social media accounts from getting hacked. It will then go onto areas similar to how to carry on secure on-line dialog, how to detect pretend web sites, emails, and SMS — we shall be overlaying virtually all areas of cyber-safety.”

“Be Cybersmart” is a digital literacy and cybersecurity-focused undertaking carried out in Bengali, that plans to empower 650 female students within the age group of 16-25 years, from Bengali medium excessive colleges and schools, representing numerous ethnic, cultural, non secular, and social segments of society, together with underserved communities.