National Commission for Women launches 4th phase of Digital Shakti with CyberPeace Foundation, Meta and Autobot Infosec

In line with its commitment to create safe spaces for women and girls online, the Commission, along with partners has launched the fourth phase of Digital Shakti post successful completion of the three phases in the past. The campaign is focused on making women digitally skilled and aware to stand up against any cyber harms - illegal/inappropriate activity online.

The launch was graced by Rekha Sharma, Chairperson, NCW, Lt Gen BS Raju, UYSM, AVSM, YSM, Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS); Major Vineet Kumar, Founder and Global President, CyberPeace Foundation; Rajiv Aggarwal, Director and Head of Public Policy, Meta India (previously Facebook), graced the occasion.

Lt Gen BS Raju, UYSM, AVSM, YSM, Vice Chief of Army Staff (VCOAS) addressing the audience said, "Today India is the second largest user of the internet, and the third largest country which gets cyberbullied, and stats show that 98% are women. we are scaling this to the fourth phase with an exponential path to go. e will take this opportunity to awareness more and more women. I am happy that AWWA, NWWA and AFWWA are constantly striving to follow these policies by CPF, Meta and NCW towards awareness for women about safe cyberspace because that's how our families will also be safe."

While addressing the audience Rekha Sharma, Chairperson, NCW mentioned the continuous efforts of the Commission for empowering women in every sphere across the nation. She said, "This new phase will prove to be a milestone in ensuring safe cyber spaces for women. Digital Shakti has been accelerating the digital participation of women and girls by training them to use technology to their advantage and to keep themselves safe online. I believe the project will continue to contribute towards the larger goal of fighting Cyber violence against women and girls and make internet a safer space for them."

Rajiv Aggarwal highlighted Meta's efforts towards enabling safe online experience for women, "It has always been our endeavor to create an online experience for women which is not only enabling but is also safe. Digital Shakti has been an enabler for more than 3 lakh women and with the launch of phase 4, we aim to sensitize more than 1 million women across India on how to be safe online so as to derive the best experience and opportunities that digital platforms have to offer."

Major Vineet Kumar, Founder and Global President, CyberPeace Foundation mentioned, "Given the accelerated digital adoption and cyber harms against vulnerable populations, government and fraternity members are working aggressively towards empowering and upskilling girls and women in cyberspace to protect them. After receiving a tremendously positive response, we are glad to have partnered with NCW, Meta, Autobot Infosec and other collaborators. We look forward to significantly bridging the cybersecurity knowledge gap in India among vulnerable populations and reaching 1 million netizens in the next two years."

The launch was followed by an interactive panel discussion on "Safe Spaces Online Combatting Cyber-enabled Human Trafficking & Combatting Other forms of Online Violence" in order to provide keen opinions from experts from the Industry, Government, and Academia to address the issue of online women safety from all tangents and provide whole approach to ensure better women safety online. The discussion was moderated by Padma Shri Sunitha Krishnan, General Secretary, Prajwala and as panelists were - Ashutosh Pande, Senior Research Officer, NCW, Pavan Duggal, Advocate, Supreme Court of India and Advisor, CPF, Veerendra Mishra, AIG, SISF, Madhya Pradesh Police and Advisor, NCW, Preeti Chauhan, Director-Operations, CPF participated in the discussion.

The campaign Digital Shakti started in June 2018 to help women across the nation to raise the awareness level on the digital front, to build resilience, and fight cyber-crime in the most effective ways. Through this project, over 3 Lakhs women across India have been made aware of cyber safety tips and tricks, reporting & redressal mechanisms, data privacy and usage of technology for their benefits.

The third phase of the program started in March 2021 with the Launch at Leh by NCW Chairperson Smt Rekha Sharma in the presence of Lieutenant Governor Radha Krishna Mathur & Jamyang Tsering Namgyal MP Ladakh. In the third phase, a Resource Center was also developed under the project to provide information on all the avenues of reporting in case a woman faces any cyber crime. The Resource Center was launched by Ramesh Bais, Governor of Jharkhand.

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