A total of 32 University of Rwanda (UR), College of Science and Technology (CST) academic staff on November 12, 2023, concluded a three-day workshop on how to secure their computers and data effectively.

Following the recent workshop regarding Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) also referred to as drones, the workshop aimed at equipping participants with advanced skills to tackle internet attacks and share experiences, jointly advancing the field of cybersecurity education, with students as the primary beneficiaries.

The event at UR’s College of Agriculture, Animal Science and Veterinary Medicine (CAVM), Busogo Campus, gathered academic staff with advanced computing skills to address cyber-attacks and acknowledge the growing significance of cybersecurity in today's digital age. They also received guidance on certification.

The initiative, under the ‘Base Funding Project’ spearheaded by the African Engineering and Technology Network (AFRETEC) funded by Mastercard Foundation through Carnegie Mellon University-Africa (CMU), is at the forefront of driving inclusive digital growth through collaboration and higher education.

AFRETEC, composed of technology-focused universities across the continent, is dedicated to building engineering and technology capacity in education, knowledge creation, and entrepreneurship. The network centres its efforts around four key pillars mainly; teaching and learning excellence, knowledge creation, pathways to opportunity, and inclusivity.

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During the closing event, Dr Pierre Bakunzibake, the project implementation lead and Head of the Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department at the UR, said, "These workshops highlight AFRETEC’s commitment to teaching and learning excellence, and provide a platform for academic staff to enhance their skills in teaching emerging technologies.

"The focus is on preparing educators to tackle cyber threats head-on, ensuring they are highly experienced in various measures and techniques.”

He added: "Some of the fundamental aspects covered in these workshops are ‘encryption’ and ‘decryption’. The former involves transforming data into a secure format that is unreadable without the corresponding decryption key or receiver. This process plays a big role in cybersecurity by ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of sensitive information from either sender or receiver.”

To put this into perspective, for example, in mobile banking, encryption plays a big role in securing sensitive information during transactions. When one initiates a transaction such as transferring money or checking their balance, mobile banking converts their financial data into a complex code. This process involves a unique key, known only to one’s device and the bank’s server.

Bakunzibake said, "Participants engaged in different hands-on exercises as part of small practices to send and receive certain messages or information among themselves.”

Bakunzibake believes that these trainings are beneficial, stating that "the increase in knowledgeable individuals providing necessary skills has been a big challenge compared to previous days.”

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Claudia Abineza, an AFRETEC beneficiary, and an assistant lecturer at UR, CST campus in the Department of Information Communication Technology (ICT), commended the initiative as she learnt several techniques on how to deal with internet attacks that come with good intentions and vice-versa.

"Technology keeps on evolving day and night, therefore, lecturers also need to be updated with the latest in order to adapt and provide relevant lessons to the students,” she said.

As part of the takeaways from the workshop, Abineza understood that cyber-attacks may come in different ways and can alter personal information which is so insecure. Everyone should be vigilant whether physically surrounded or engaged in an online personal activity.

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Alexander Ngenzi, a Senior lecturer at UR in the Department of Computer and Software Engineering, said he has been teaching encryption and decryption for quite a while but never delved as deep as he did during the three-day workshop.

"These workshops are essential because we need to teach our students what we understand well, and also for personal gigs. It means a lot as we learn technical know-how academically and provide a huge package to the learners with necessary guidelines and hands-on skills.”