The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has recently launched the Emirates Cyber Ambassadors Initiative as part of its information security awareness campaigns, which aims to train elite students in UAE schools to represent the team as ambassadors in promoting and spreading cyber security awareness across the UAE.

The “Cybersecurity” ambassador initiative was launched to build a secure e-culture as it is considered a competitive initiative to empower Emirati students as cybersecurity ambassadors. The initiative focuses on three focus areas: first, to provide safe e-culture training for selected 14 to 18-year-olds in selected UAE schools; second, to improve presentation skills; and third, to raise awareness of best security practices among the public.

“In line with the UAE Vision 2021 on promoting a secure electronic lifestyle in the UAE, we began the pilot phase of the Cybersecurity Ambassadors Initiative in February of this year. Training workshops were offered to students to evaluate their performance and readiness to join the list of cybersecurity ambassadors. The results were promising, which led us to complement the revision and selection of 30 male students and 30 female students to represent the initiative,” said Eng. Mohammed Gheyath, Executive Director Information Security Regulatory Affairs.

The four-day selection process is divided into two stages, pre-training and post-training. Each stage included 30 questions to evaluate candidates' level of cybersecurity awareness, presentation skills and finally discussion skills. At the conclusion of the initiative, the TRA organized a program to reward the top 10 student ambassadors with valuable certificates and gifts.