THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Faced with a sharp surge in digital offences — with over 41,000 cybercrime complaints annually, thousands of registered fraud cases, and financial losses exceeding Rs 760 crore — the state government is assembling a grassroots army to spread online safety awareness.
The SafeTech, or Cyber Jagratha Campaign, organised by the Kerala State IT Mission (KSITM), is being designed as an evolving, permanent safety framework to tackle rapidly changing online threats. Under the initiative, a grassroots army comprising college students, retired professionals, and local community members, who will serve as ‘SafeTech Ambassadors’, will be deployed to directly train families, students, and senior citizens in their own neighbourhoods.
The campaign — to be launched officially on October 7 — will bring together more than 1,000 community ambassadors as wells as 600 student volunteers from computer science and engineering disciplines. “We are selecting third-year students in engineering, BCA, BSc computer science, or those with IT-related exposure,” said Muraleedharan Manningal, CEO of ICT Academy of Kerala (ICTAK), the knowledge management and training partner.
“We will offer student volunteers a Cyber Security Inter-University Certificate Programme. This gives them a distinct advantage during campus placements while motivating them to contribute to a vital public cause, he said.
In return, each student ambassador will be tasked with providing end-to-end training to at least 250 students across multiple batches in high schools, higher secondary schools, and colleges.
The educational outreach specifically targets individuals aged 13 and above as they see a significantly higher exposure to mobile phone use, he said.
On the community front, retired teachers, former police officers, military veterans, IT professionals, and retired bankers will lead local drives across all 14 districts.
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