Bangalore: WNS Cares Foundation (WCF), the CSR arm of WNS Global Services, today announced that it has collaborated with Robotex India to empower children and youth with practical knowledge around cyber safety through its digital platformCyberSmart.
By 2023-24, WCF and Robotex India will be empowering over 10 lakh students in a phased manner. Initially, as part of a pilot program, WCF will provide orientation support for certifying around 1,000 students through CyberSmart. Subsequently, WCF will conduct Train the Trainers sessions for Zilla Parishad school teachers and Robotex India volunteers across Maharashtra.
These will further train teachers in government schools and help create cybersafety awareness among over 8 lakh children in rural schools. In phase two, over 2 lakh students from over 500 Maharashtra Model Schools will also be certified on cybersafety.
“CyberSmart was launched with the vision of empowering every child in the country to safely navigate the virtual world. WCF’s collaboration with Robotex India is another step in that direction. Both organizations are focused on furthering the cybersafety agenda and creating an equitable, safe online space for children,” said Keshav R. Murugesh, Group CEO, WNS.
“WCF and Robotex India are working towards bridging the digital divide and empowering children with the skills to create a brighter future for themselves. We believe that this collaboration is the beginning of a partnership through which we will make a difference to the lives of children across India,” Payal Rajpal, Director, Robotex India.
“The unique online and offline methodology created for CyberSmart has helped us use the platform effectively in collaborating with institutions and organizations that work in remote regions where access to devices and the internet may be a challenge. We are proud to be able to enable over 10 lakh children become cyber safe across rural and urban Maharashtra through this collaboration,” said Shamini Murugesh, Honorary Chief Mentor, WCF, and Creator, CyberSmart.
“Cybersafety has always been a crucial agenda for the government and given the acceleration in the adoption of digital education, it has become essential to make cybersafety a part of the school curriculum. The pace at which WCF CyberSmart is being adopted since its launch last year with MeitY and NASSCOM, is a testimony to the fact that as a society, we realize the importance of making our virtual spaces safe for children,” said Dr. Ajay Garg, Director, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
Apart from the collaboration on CyberSmart, Robotex India will also provide relevant content that will be hosted on Digital Treasure, a free-access online repository housing quality curricular content and stories in multimedia formats, available in various Indian languages.
India’s first holistic cybersecurity education portal, CyberSmart enables gamified learning using thematic quiz-based modules based on curriculum advisory and challenges that children encounter in cyberspace. It was launched nationally in May 2020 by Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY, in partnership with NASSCOM, and is available in ten Indian languages. Since the launch, CyberSmart has empowered more than 6 lakh learners including teachers, parents and children on traversing cyberspace safely.
(India CSR)
