The CyberPeace Foundation, in a joint collaboration with the Ministry of Education and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), launched a first of its kind digital training Project eSaksham on Monday.

The programme will focus on developing skills in the cyber security domain, exclusively for college students and teachers.

May 17 is also celebrated globally as the National Telecommunication Day and Information Society Day.

The initiative was kicked off by chairperson of AICTE Anil D. Sahasrabudhe over an online Zoom meeting, along with Shri Buddha Chandrasekhar, chief coordinating officer of AICTE; Lt. Gen (Dr.) Rajesh Pant (Retd.), National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC), Government of India and Capt. Vineet Kumar, founder and president, CyberPeace Foundation.

The capacity building project was undertaken owing to the lack of manpower in the domain. According to NASSCOM, India had a shortage of one million cyber security professionals in 2020. The labour crunch is expected to hit approximately 3.5 million by 2021.

The aim is to build a community where the internet strengthens instead of becoming a weakness, while making the youth industry ready and to also create a secure ecosystem where research work can be transformed into market ready products.

“Everyone wants to be happy and safe but Homo sapiens have also got a criminal tendency and it is not new and when there is crime, there has to be cops. As civilization grew and we developed the World Wide Web, there were new challenges thrown to us. The eSaksham project will teach the participants how to identify and mitigate those challenges. Indian students are already very tech and IT savvy, participating in the eSaksham training will be a way to contribute to society," said Sahasrabudhe.

"The Indian government too is working on a national cyber security ecosystem, the strategy for which will be ready by this year. In the new normal, there are only two mantras for survival- personal hygiene and cyber hygiene," said Pant.

Following his speech he announced the third edition of the Global CyberPeace Challenge (GCC 3.0) which will be launched in the upcoming months. He also launched the eRaksha 2020 compendium created to celebrate the winners of the second edition of the competition conducted for students, educators, parents and caregivers across the nation.

The eSaksham training will be conducted at four levels followed by assessments. A total of 5 lakh students and educators will be trained through the online sessions. 25000 CyberPeace Corps volunteers and 500 CyberPeace fellows will also be created through various levels of training, and 50 CyberPeace Clubs will be set up across the country.

Participants at the final level will also be connected to mentors and will have access to laboratories and cyber ranges, to further develop their skills. Successful completion of training shall make the participants eligible for a certificate by AICTE and CyberPeace Foundation.