As India undergoes speedy digital transformation, the alternatives are immense — however so are the dangers. Cybercrime losses exceeded ₹1,750 crore within the first 4 months of 2024 alone. [1] Whereas India requires a minimum of a million cybersecurity professionals, its present workforce is lower than half that quantity. [2] This makes it paramount not solely to equip residents with data on how one can keep protected on-line, but additionally to coach the cybersecurity workforce India urgently wants.
That is the problem that sits on the coronary heart of the partnership between Cisco and the NIIT Basis, an India-based nonprofit targeted on training and ability growth that helped us positively affect 50 million individuals in India. Since 2008, Cisco and NIIT Basis have partnered on initiatives that bridge the digital divide, together with varied coaching packages for India’s youth. Constructing on this sturdy basis, in 2022, we launched a flagship initiative: Cyber Suraksha.
A multipronged strategy to cyber security
Aligned with Cisco’s technique to leverage expertise and partnerships to sort out important wants in training and financial growth, the Cyber Suraksha program goals to construct widespread data on cyber security whereas coaching younger individuals for cybersecurity careers. This system — designed as a complete response to India’s escalating cybersecurity challenges — is structured round three key programs:
- Cyber Consciousness: A 20-hour foundational program for ages 13+ overlaying private on-line security and safety in opposition to cyber threats like id theft, cyber-bullying, and fraud.
- Cyber Sensible: A sophisticated course for school college students taken with cybersecurity and making ready for careers within the area.
- Cyber Workforce: A complete, employability-focused program designed to coach people for roles within the cybersecurity trade.
Cyber Suraksha’s affect by the numbers
Over a three-year grant interval (2022–2025), Cyber Suraksha pursued an formidable imaginative and prescient: coaching a million people throughout India in cybersecurity abilities and consciousness. By March 2025, this system had surpassed that purpose throughout its three programs, demonstrating the curriculum’s effectiveness and the widespread demand for accessible digital security coaching.
This system’s affect has been each wide-reaching and inclusive, spanning communities typically left behind in tech training. With greater than 40% feminine participation, this system helps to reshape a area the place girls are sometimes underrepresented globally. Moreover, members who discovered employment after finishing this system noticed their household incomes rise by a median of 39% over a three-year interval, highlighting how digital abilities and cybersecurity coaching can straight contribute to financial mobility.
Actual lives, actual affect: Tales from the Cyber Suraksha program
Whereas the statistics inform a robust story of scale, the true affect of Cyber Suraksha is greatest understood by way of the lives it has remodeled. Rehana, a 31-year-old trans girl and neighborhood advocate from New Delhi, seen that her neighborhood was significantly vulnerable to cyber threats resulting from a lack of information. “The Cyber Suraksha initiative empowered me to acknowledge and reply to cyber threats,” she defined. “I developed important cybersecurity abilities by way of mentorship and sensible expertise.” Immediately, she’s captivated with elevating cyber consciousness and works to assist her neighborhood defend themselves on-line.
Private experiences with cyber fraud motivated each Apurba, a 25-year-old laptop software graduate from rural West Bengal, and Anand, a 50-year-old yoga instructor from Delhi, to enroll in Cyber Suraksha. Each had been focused by on-line scams, from unauthorized financial institution transactions to electronic mail breaches. “The programs supplied me with superior abilities and a robust theoretical basis,” Apurba shared, crediting this system with making ready him for his profession. For Anand, the coaching supplied one thing equally worthwhile: “The Cyber Suraksha program significantly enhanced my understanding of fraud ways and how one can stop them.” Immediately, Apurba works in cybersecurity whereas Anand actively raises consciousness about cyber security in his neighborhood.
The partnerships advancing cybersecurity in India
Cyber Suraksha’s success displays the energy of the partnership between Cisco and NIIT Basis. Collectively, we’ve reached underserved populations — from rural youth to older adults — equipping them with abilities that open pathways to sustainable livelihoods.
Attaining this scale required partnerships at each degree: greater than 500 schools, 129 NGOs, and three,000+ authorities faculties throughout 27 states and 5 union territories supplied grassroots entry and native perception. Know-how platforms for mission administration, affect monitoring, and AI-driven studying enabled this system to adapt rapidly and personalize content material. NIIT Basis’s neighborhood networks mixed with Cisco’s expertise infrastructure created a depth of affect that neither of us may have achieved alone.
Trying forward towards a digitally resilient future
The journey doesn’t finish right here. Constructing on Cyber Suraksha’s success, Cisco and NIIT Basis are launching Cyber Suraksha Plus to achieve a further 2.7 million individuals over the following three years. The initiative will keep its give attention to reaching all learners, aiming for 40% feminine participation, and can increase into synthetic intelligence coaching alongside cybersecurity.
By means of a number of supply channels — instructor-led periods, train-the-trainer fashions, and self-paced platforms just like the Study@NIITFoundation app — this system will lengthen its attain into much more distant areas and susceptible communities. Strengthened partnerships with authorities establishments, schools, and grassroots organizations will allow sustainable, cost-effective supply at scale.
The tales of Rehana, Apurba, Anand, and a million others show what’s potential when expertise, training, and partnership come collectively. As Cisco and NIIT Basis proceed this work, we’re not simply constructing cybersecurity abilities — we’re creating pathways to alternative and contributing to a safer digital future for all of India.
