Sixty-five girls from vernacular-medium schools and colleges in Kolkata were educated about cyber threats and an upcoming cybersmart mobile application at a safe internet practices workshop at the US Consulate Kolkata recently.
The two-day workshop titled ‘Be Cybersmart’, held in collaboration with NGO Change Initiatives, dwelt upon cyber bullying, fake messages, photo hacking and social media risks.
Starting off with students from Balia Nafar Chandra Balika Vidyalaya and Kamrabad Girls High School, the initiative empowers participants to share their newfound knowledge within their schools, colleges and communities.
Students from Balia Nafar Chandra Balika Vidyalaya and Kamrabad Girls High School attend the workshop at US Consulate Kolkata.
“The US government has brought relentless focus to improve cyber defence, by building a comprehensive approach to ‘lock our digital doors’ and take action to strengthen and safeguard cyber security,” Anne Seshadri, deputy director, press and public diplomacy, Bureau of South and Central Asia, US Department of State, told My Kolkata.
A cybersmart mobile application, currently in development, will provide comprehensive cyber safety guidance to participants, fostering widespread awareness among young women. Upon completing the course and sharing the application, participants will receive certificates, and the application will be distributed to educational institutions, media professionals, and community leaders for broader impact and potential integration into existing curricula.
Director of Change Initiatives Jhumpa Ghosh at the event.
“Nowadays, students aged between 15 and 24 are highly vulnerable to cyber crime. Hence, we train them so that they can protect themselves. Basically, students are now spending longer hours on the Internet, thus chances of fraud and cyber crime automatically increase. We feel that they can protect themselves better through awareness. We aim to train 650 students throughout the year and we hope that the number multiplies as these students would then go back and train the rest from their communities,” said Jhumpa Ghosh, the director of Change Initiatives.
“From the month of May, our application would also be available on the Playstore for people to download. The application would have five to six levels of training programme, where a user would be required to complete first level in order to proceed to the next level. We hope in this way, we will be able to spread and implement our message better,” added Ghosh.
Attendees gained valuable insights into how to use the digital landscape safely. The programme further covered essential topics such as safe app downloads, phone and social media account protection, and detecting fake websites. Equipped with this knowledge, students are better prepared to safeguard their online presence and avoid cyber threats.
US Consulate Kolkata in partnership with Change Initiatives empowers the next generation of cyber defenders.
Sriparna Saha, a Class XI student from Kamrabad Girls High School, said the workshop helped her learn about different ways to surf the Internet safely. “Before this workshop, I was completely unaware of the threat downloading files from different websites can bring to my system. I also found the question-and-answer session on doubt clarification extremely helpful. Overall, I believe I learnt a lot from this workshop.”
“Attending this two-day workshop was an enriching experience for me. I believe this experience taught me how to protect my personal information from hackers. I personally liked the video and activity session more as it provided me an opportunity to get involved and learn how I can navigate the internet safely,” said Debopriya Ghosh, another Class XI student from Kamrabad Girls High School.
