CyberPeace Foundation and Truecaller come together to give cyber safety lessons through street plays

Udaipur : Truecaller, the world’s leading global communications platform in collaboration with CyberPeace Foundation, a non-partisan civil society organization, organised the first Nukkad Natak (street play) focused on digital safety under the #TrueCyberSafe campaign at the IIS (Deemed to be University) in Jaipur, Rajasthan. The joint initiative is aimed at spreading awareness and training people to tackle cyber frauds leading to a safer online experience for society. Safety trainings under the #TrueCyberSafe campaign has been taking place in various parts of the country since February 2022 and has reached over 1 million citizens.

The event was graced by senior law enforcement officer Mr. Rajeev Sharma IPS, Additional DGP cum Director, Rajasthan Police Academy as the Chief Guest and Lieutenant Colonel Arvind Rajhans, Advisor, CyberPeace Foundation as the Guest of Honor. The program opened with a keynote address by the Chief Guest and was followed by a street play to educate the students about the growing menace of cyber threats and fraud. This was followed by a #TrueCyberSafe training session for the students and faculty of the University.  

Addressing the audience in Rajasthan, Mr. Rajeev Sharma IPS, Additional DGP cum Director, Rajasthan Police Academysaid, “As per reports, 1.5 million cyber-attacks happen annually, which means almost 4000 cyber attacks happen every day and around 170 attacks happen every hour. The best solution to address this appears to be having awareness. I’m sure all students being tech savvy, having smartphones, laptops, ipads are comfortable using them, but just knowing how to use them is not enough today, you also need to be aware of the risks whenever you are online whether on phone or laptop. Unless you are equipped and aware how to deal with all these issues, things will become out of control. It is in our benefit to therefore become aware and keep learning, as technology keeps updating. We’d like to reach the highest number in Rajasthan when it comes to these trainings with Truecaller and CPF ”

 Ms. Pragya Misra, Director of Public Affairs, Truecaller said “We launched the #TrueCyberSafe campaign in February 2022 and since then we have reached more than 1 million citizens through online and offline training. In our efforts to reach citizens beyond colleges and universities, we explored street plays as a medium of communication to pass on the message & importance of cyber safety in an innovative, fun and lighthearted manner. We are confident that citizens will have a better response to visuals of street plays, helping to carry its lessons further to their friends and family to make their digital experience safer.”

Talking about the “CyberPeace – The Need of the hour” Major Vineet Kumar, Global President and Founder, CyberPeace Foundation said “These unfavourable externalities will increase as we continue on our journey toward technology. We must thus take action to empower citizens, and the first step in doing so is to increase knowledge of online safety and provide information on how to file a cybercrime report. Together with stakeholders, we think that this training on recognizing online dangers and safety will help address this issue and pave the way for Internet usage in the future.”

Ahead of the training session at the college, the Nukkad Natak was also organised at prime locations within Jaipur such as Sindi Camp bus stand, Chandpole Bazaar and Devri Ji ka Mandir in Johri Bazaar to attract the attention of the masses and deliver the message on cyber safety to protect them from scams and frauds. The street plays were performed by a specialised group of artists ‘Steps For Change’.