In this era of rapid technological advancement, children must immerse themselves in technology at a young age to start learning the skills they will use throughout their lives. Furthermore, they must be warned about the risks of using the latest gadgets like smartphones, computer applications, and gaming tools. Most of the time, these warnings or awareness isn’t implemented.
According to the Ministry of Communications and Technology, Qatar’s cybersecurity market is estimated at over $1bn in 2022, with an expected growth of 10% per year, making it worth nearly $$1.5bn by 2026.
In Qatar, the young population and their knowledge of technology make the country a target for cyber manipulators and criminals. To this end, the National Cyber Security Agency (NCSA) represented by The National Cyber Excellence Department and in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MOEHE) Department of E-learning and Digital solutions, launched an awareness campaign targeting 30 schools, 3,000 students, teachers and parents.
The one-of-a-kind campaign will educate students about cyber risks, raise their level of awareness and highlight the most prominent practices that help protect the educational sector and the student’s community from cyber threats, enhancing the values of digital citizenship.National Cyber Excellence Department Manager Dalal Al Aqeedi said the project comes within the agency’s framework to enhance cyber awareness and its vision to build a secure cyber society where all its segments know the challenges accompanying the rapid technological revolution.
Al Aqeedi added that the partnership with the Ministry of Education has resulted in the launching of the Cyber Educational Curricula project, which is the first of its kind in the region in terms of targeting students in the school environment and is customised to each age group with content commensurate with their level of awareness, address students with special needs, parallel education and education of elderly to ensure the dissemination of cyber awareness in the entire educational community.
Alongside the “Educational Cybersecurity Curricula” project, another pioneering initiative “Cyber Eco” was launched that complements it. The initiative aims to enhance awareness of the concepts and values of cyber safety through extra-curricular activities within the school environment, including field visits. Enlightening kids about cybersecurity has become imperative. Experts say no industry has more to gain from the minds of young people than cybersecurity. By 2030, 500 billion devices are expected to be connected to the internet. Trend Micro’s Annual Cybersecurity Report for 2021 detailed that over 4 million email threats and over 6 million URL victim attacks were detected and blocked across Qatar.
