Microsoft announced the expansion of its CyberShikshaa program in association with the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), Tata STRIVE and ICT Academy. In the next three years, the program aspires to reach 45,000 women and underserved youth with technical skills for careers in cybersecurity and provide internships or job opportunities for 10,000 learners.

CyberShikshaa launched by Microsoft and DSCI in 2018, has trained 1,100 women and employed more than 800 women through multiple training batches. More than 5,000 underserved youth have also been trained in Cybersecurity Beginners modules. CyberShikshaa for Educators with ICT Academy, the latest addition to the CyberShikshaa portfolio launched in June 2022 for providing cybersecurity training to 400 faculty members, will help build cybersecurity careers for 6,000 underserved students across 100 rural technical institutions and facilitate job opportunities for over 1,500 students.  

In its fifth year, CyberShikshaa will focus on scaling the program, leveraging industry partnerships and conducting specialised training for careers in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) industry. Expanding its reach into semi-urban and rural locations of the country, the program will offer AI/ML training for cybersecurity product development and enable cybersecurity certifications through a Cybersecurity Beginners program named ‘Ready4Cybersecurity'. More than 10,000 rural underserved youth will be enabled with Ready4Cybersecurity certifications.  

The announcement was made in New Delhi in the presence of Rama Vedashree, Former Chief Executive Officer, DSCI; Tom Burt, Corporate Vice President – Customer Security and Trust, Microsoft Corp; Dr Rohini Srivathsa, National Technology Officer, Microsoft India; Hari Balachandran, Chief Executive Officer, ICT Academy and Rajarshi Mukherjee, Principal Lead – Partnerships, Tata STRIVE. Microsoft and DSCI also released an impact summary comprising anecdotes from participants of the program in the last four years.