TECHNICAL REPORT
| Grantee |
Passerelles Numériques
|
| Project Title | CyberSecurity - Cambodia |
| Amount Awarded | 30,000 |
| Dates covered by this report: | 2021-12-22 to 2023-04-30 |
| Economies where project was implemented | Cambodia |
| Project leader name |
Martin Mouchenik
|
Project Summary
Passerelles Numériques Cambodia (PNC) and The Foundry are working to create playful and accessible online learning content on security issues faced by the public and organizations when navigating the web and using digital devices. The project includes simple interactive videos and quizzes to develop public knowledge public about security threats they can encounter in their daily lives. Our project is targeting youth and women that are the most touched by digital illiteracy. The organisation SHE investment promotes our tool to the women entrepreneurs, while PNC will share with the youth through their other educative activities. Thanks to this project the website users will: have access to educational content to gain a deeper understanding of cybersecurity, assess their own knowledge on the topic (before and after accessing the educational content) Have recommendations on how to improve their security online. So far, here are the progress we made We launched of the cybersecurity awareness website https://cybersecurity-kh.com/ with the first basics topics (interactive videos and quizz): phone protection, passwords and public wifi in Khmer and English version - Vietnamese and Cebuano version in the progress of translation In progress: development of the contents about social media, Phishing and malware + the paying part of the website more dedicated to entrepreneurs and employees. Promotion of the website on social media Promotion of the website in person in High schools and NGOs Since December 2022 The cybersecurity application is finalized. All contents are completed. Interactive and playful scenarios are created and integrated into the app. Focus on translations in Khmer, English and French as the solution will be deployed for Cambodia. Translations has been done, reviewed and corrected for all contents User experience has been tested previously and again in December 2022 Configurations and functions have been set up in collaboration and coordination with the service provider The Foundry. It is set up for tracking user progress and statistical data Updated plan in the Project Implementation Narrative.
Table of contents
- Project factsheet information
- Background and justification
- Project Implementation Narrative
- Project Review and Assessment
- Gender Equity and Inclusion
- Project Management
- Project Sustainability
- Project Communication
- Project recommendations and use of findings
- Bibliography
Background and Justification
Digitalization is relatively new and quickly accelerating in Cambodia. In recent years, the Cambodian government has placed a high priority on the development of the digital economy, notably with its Strategy for Growth, Employment, Equity and Efficiency which capitalizes on the digitalization of the Cambodian economy and seizing opportunities arising from the Industrial Revolution 4.0.
Digitalization affects all sectors of the economy, companies as well as individuals, and has taken up at a very fast pace in recent years. Cambodians have jumped into the digital age, mostly with the spread of smartphones. According to statistics released by the Telecommunications Regulator of Cambodia (TRC), the number of registered SIM cards rose by 9.4 per cent during the first half of the year, reaching 20.8 million while the number of internet users rose 31.6% which would now signify that 98.5 per cent of the Cambodian population is using the internet (either through mobile Internet or fixed Internet).
More and more local companies, including SMEs, depend on digital technologies. The biggest digital convention at the national level, Digital Cambodia, focused on the digital transformation of the economy through SMEs with “SMEs Go Digital: MSMEs Digital Maturity adoption”. Indeed, actors of the sector agree that the rise of the digital economy in Cambodia is an opportunity for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to scale, improve their products or deliver their services. Simultaneously, the rise of social media and notably its use as a selling platform or for business purposes in Khmer society is raising concern over user privacy and security. In 2019 only, according to the Digital 2020 report published by Data report the number of mobile social media users in Cambodia increased by 29% (+2Millions) and we now count 8,800,000 Facebook users in Cambodia alone. In 2019, according to the World Bank, only 22% of Cambodians owned an account at a financial institution.
With such a high percentage of the population unbanked, social media platforms such as Facebook have given the rise to a new form of e-commerce -social selling - that is bypassing the local e-commerce platforms. Those social media platforms are particularly popular amongst the younger slice of the population, the 18-30 years old, which represent for example 73% of Facebook users. With the growing entrepreneurial spirit amongst women in Cambodia through micro to SMEs -often informal (65% of businesses run by women)- and the large proportion of social media users being female (41% for Facebook, 53% for Instagram in 2019), female entrepreneurs are increasingly at risk when using digital tools for business purposes.
While digitalization brings many advantages, there are drawbacks. A lack of basic knowledge of cybersecurity fundamentals causes major security issues. Cyberthreats are becoming a growing concern for the Cambodian government which is now recognizing the urgency of drafting an anti-cybercrime law. Just recently, the Minister of the Interior Sar Khneg met with US Ambassador Patrock Murphy to discuss future bilateral collaboration about civil society issues and notably: Cybercrime.
Indeed, what we see today is that individuals and companies can easily be the target of hackers, and many Cambodian users do not yet have the most basic reflex to protect themselves on the Web. As a consequence of this observation, we propose to improve the awareness of cybersecurity within Cambodia by providing a website and distributing essential knowledge and insights into that field. It will be available both in Khmer and English to not only target IT-savvy individuals but rather, the broader public, including non-IT individuals working for SMEs as well as youths.
We aim to help the public to be able to protect their devices, personal and/or professional data and ease their digital experience to make it a safe and empowering tool for them. We have developed a specific detailed plan for the youth as they represent our primary target beneficiaries related to our mandate and next years project will focus on supporting youth with underprivileged backgrounds via access to digital technologies.
Project Implementation Narrative
This project started in 2020 in partnership with Passerelles Numériques Cambodia (PNC), the Foundry and SHE investment.
PNC is an NGO created in 2005 dedicated to providing education, technical and professional training in the digital sector to young underprivileged people by leveraging their potential and willpower.
The Foundry delivers digital solutions and technology services from ideation to execution. The Foundry’s expertise in web development, application management and business awareness turns IT into a strategic asset.
SHE Investments (Support Her Enterprise Co. Ltd.) is a social enterprise that delivers the first and only gender-focused and culturally tailored business incubator and accelerator programs for women entrepreneurs in Cambodia.
Digital literacy is the heart of PNC mission. We realize by observing our students that digital devices are more accessible but the understanding of its usage is low, even unsafe regarding security risks. The "Date Reportal" website and ADA Telco report show analysis proving this observation.
PNC looks for partners in order to develop a project to solve this. This is how we agreed to partner with the Foundry and SHE investments.
PNC is in charge of the training and content, while The Foundry developed the website. For the promotion of the website, PNC & The Foundry teamed up with SHE Investments to reach youth from high schools/NGOs, and women entrepreneurs.
The first development of the project was supported by DAI Cambodia & USAID who financed the first version of the project. Thanks to these funds, PNC conducted a survey to understand the targeted population's level of knowledge regarding smartphone use (as it is the device the most used in Cambodia).
Researching our target audience
In order to present a relevant product, we needed to research the digital development and challenges in Cambodia, as the individual habits. We read a few studies done in the past years and we conducted one survey (reaching 166 people).
The main conclusions from this research are: Mobile phones are the device type the most used in Cambodia, but the usage knowledge included on the protection topic is really low.
Our future users will probably use their phones to reach our website so we have to be phone friendly. We have to go to the basics in terms of cybersecurity content. We have to develop a dedicated topic link to phone usage and protection. As the level of knowledge is low, the pedagogy used will be essential.
Following this first step, we decided to modify the medium of the learning content. Initially, it was supposed to be text only, but we realized that in terms of pedagogy and being user friendly it is not the best option. Finally, we opted for the production of short interactive videos, where the user could go back on the theory and really test their progress. In order to ease the video production, Passerelles numériques team developed a tool named “scenario maker”. Thanks to this web app, anyone with basic digital skills is able to create interactive videos.
Development of the scenario maker
This tool aims to ease the video editing production process after this project and ensure to be able to multiply the process of learning interactive video production smoothly and with low skills in video design requirements. This tool will ease the translation process: we have to upload the translated text and the video will be available in a few seconds in another language.
Contents topics definition
As mentioned previously, the level of knowledge about digital and cybersecurity is so slow we reviewed our topics and learning objective
Smartphone security as a topic:
The smartphone is the most used device in the country, so it makes sense to the team to focus a big part of the website to its protection. We focused on it in 3 videos:
Video 1: phone lost story:
This video aims to convince the user of the necessity to protect his phone. Our main character will experience losing her phone and not be able to find it back due to a lack of protection.
Video 2: lock your smartphone
In this video, the user learns how to lock their smartphone using various methods.
Video 3: set protection on smartphone
This third video on smartphone topics has the objective to teach the user to activate location, backups and remote access tools.
Public Wi-Fi:
Public Wi-Fi is often available and used in Cambodia. Users are not always aware of the risks of using an unprotected Wi-Fi network to realize some actions. For this topics we created 2 videos:
Video 1: use a safe network
This video aims to explain to the user how to recognize a safe network. Afterwards, the user will practice connecting to the Wi-Fi and choose a good password thanks to a quiz during the video.
Video 2:
In this video, our character will learn what could happen if she connected to an unsecured Wi-Fi network. The aim is to explain by example how important it is to consider this topic.
Passwords:
Passwords are an important part of cybersecurity basic topics. We also declined this topic into 2 videos:
Video 1: password tips
In this video, the user will get good tips in order to define good passwords.
Video 2: password practice
In this video, the user can review the lesson about passwords and practice using safe passwords in the future.
We also developed videos about social media, fishing, and malware. These videos need to be reviewed to be published in V2 of this project. Each video is linked to a quiz. The user can monitor their progress while they are connected to the website.
Design of the videos
In parallel with the creation of the scenario maker and definition of the contents, our designer created the characters and background for future videos. Then, we identified “scenario makers” among our team in order to write the stories. This was quite challenging as it was totally new for us. Finally, we needed to translate the video (produced in English) into Khmer languages, which is always a challenge. Indeed, an issue to consider when translating English to Cambodian is related to scientific words that often don’t have a Cambodian equivalent. It was a difficulty we encountered with the cybersecurity terms.
Tests and corrections
As it was a totally new way to produce our learning content, we needed to do a lot of testing. Firstly, we realized one of the videos to a testers panel (142 testers) that reply to a satisfaction survey in order to identify the areas of improvement of the contents themselves.
Step 2: Web application - The Foundry
The website has been developed using the last standard in application development to ensure the stability of the project in the long term. In line with the development of Scenario Maker, it let Passerelles numériques Cambodia (PNC) add custom content and quizzes to test the knowledge of the users. The platform lets us track the results and performance of the users and students anonymously for reporting so we can improve the courses and interfaces over time.
Responsive
The application adaptations depend on the user’s resolution. If he’s on a smartphone, tablet or computer, the layout will adapt to make better use of the screen and make it for a better interactive experience.
Internationalization
The project supports English and Khmer languages. All the contents and the interfaces are accessible in both languages. We plan to extend the project outside of Cambodia.
Homepage
The homepage allows the user to choose between all the courses available divided by categories.
It also displays the score the user got while doing the Quiz. These scores are recorded after completing the quiz link to the course.
Courses:
The users can interact with the animation through dynamic questions that redirect to different paths depending on their choices during the course. Those actions are there to test the users’ knowledge and help them understand what can be done to improve their security based on their current expertise. The answers given by the users are recorded for future analysis.
Quizzes:
At the end of the course, the user is redirected to a Quiz to test what he learned. Those quizzes are built around different interactions to adapt the question around the content. The quizzes are managed in the administration section of the website. They can be translated and adapted depending on the type of content that needs to be tested.
Users profile:
Users can register on the application using their Google or Facebook accounts or register with an email address. After signing in, the user will be redirected to complete his profile. That information is kept for analysis with the courses and quizzes answers.
After users register, the platform will be able to keep track of their progression and retry courses and quizzes that they want to improve. A score is given at the end of each quiz and lets us fix a level to create gamification progress and encourage the user to push forward in his learning.
Step 3: Launching and promotion - Passerelles numériques & SHE Investments
We are working on a communication plan in order to reach as many people as possible. The idea is to focus our communication on social media.
In December 2022 the project saw its strategy readjusted. Target beneficiaries are initially both youths and SMEs. However for operational and strategic reasons we will focus on youth which is our primary target beneficiary related to our mandate.
The web application aims to target the youth, especially those with lower exposure to digital literacy.
The method used to reach this population involves both promotion of cybersecurity awareness and demonstration of the app for good use. The groups include a network of 30 partner high schools and NGOs across 17 provinces in Cambodia as well as a network of provincial high schools and Youth clubs through the NomadLab solution.
What is NomadLab:
NomadLab is a modular and inclusive solution and an innovative educational tool for teachers and students which aims to digital Inclusion deployed in provincial high schools and Youth clubs (CBO: Community Based Organization).The Main goal is to provide to young underprivileged people in remote communities:
Access to digital tools with offline and online solutions to support digital literacy.
Digital learning contents to support their digital skills development and education, with components on soft and hard skills training
Learning contents based on the need
PNC is in a consortium with SIPAR for implementation of NomadLabs in Cambodia benefiting from its networks
Plan:
Excepted result: Web Security as new category in NomadLab possible to use offline – Trainers are accompanied to well orient the youth and the app is ready to be used by the Community Based Organization (CBOs) and high schools
Beneficiaries
| Number of NomadLabs | Number of potential beneficiaries |
| CBOs: 23 | 675 (includes 487 girls, or 72%) |
| High Schools: 16 | 21,050 (includes 11,680 girls, or 55.5%) |
Timeline / Actions
December 2022: Contents translations (in Khmer, English and French) are reviewed and checked, user experience is again tested
January 2023: Testing and according possibility - Cyber Security website is converted into app, available in Google Play Store with possibility to use it offline.
From February to March 2023; Field trips in 8 provinces representing 23 NomadLabs (11 high schools and 12 CBOs) for the installation of the app, demonstration to beneficiaries and training of trainers
End of project: April 2023: Field trips in 8 provinces representing 17 NomadLabs (7 high schools and 10 CBOs) within the NomadLab deployment with SIPAR (funded - not budgeted for APNIC project) for the installation of the app, demonstration to beneficiaries and training of trainers
Training of trainers:
Cybersecurity App is introduced and tested by the CBOs trainers volunteers and by the high schools teachers and librarians. The objective is to train the trainers for them to fully understand the benefits for youths of using the application. Schedule according to the progress until the end of the project (in consortium with SIPAR) > And so on, Web Security application to be introduced and tested with CBO and high schools trainers as part of the future deployments of NomadLabs in more areas. At the end of the project, with data collected from May until June 2023, the implementation has been carried out effectively from February 1st to March 25th 2023 in 8 provinces representing 23 NomadLabs (11 high schools and 12 CBOs).
| No | Name of High School | Number of participants | Girls | % of girls | Number of Devices | Status/Remark |
| 1 | Prey Pon high school | 30 | 24 | 80% | 7 | Trained on 03 Feb 2023 |
| 2 | Kraing sramor high school | 46 | 28 | 61% | 3 | Trained on 08 Feb 2023 |
| 3 | Ang Roka high school | 43 | 25 | 58% | 8 | Trained on 09 Feb 2023 |
| 4 | Borivas high school | 32 | 20 | 63% | 8 | Trained on 13 Feb 2023 |
| 5 | Pich Chenda high school | 8 | 1 | 13% | 8 | Trained on 24 Feb 2023 |
| 6 | 28 Makara high school | 36 | 17 | 47% | 8 | Trained on 27 Feb 2023 |
| 7 | Phnom Kravanh high school | 38 | 22 | 58% | 8 | Trained on 28 Feb 2023 |
| 8 | Chi He high school | 24 | 18 | 75% | 8 | Trained on 03 Mar 2023 |
| 9 | Preah Sihanouk high school | 97 | 62 | 64% | 8 | Trained on 04 Mar 2023 |
| 10 | Romeas Hek high school | 50 | 35 | 70% | 8 | Trained on 13 Mar 2023 |
| 11 | Ba Phnom high school | 43 | 30 | 70% | 8 | Trained on 14 Mar 2023 |
| Total | 233 | 137 | 59% | 82 |
| No | Name of CBO | Number of participants | Girls | % of girls | Number of Devices | Status/Remark |
| 1 | Takor | 9 | 8 | 89% | 8 | Trained on 01 Feb 2023 |
| 2 | Svay Phlous | 9 | 8 | 89% | 8 | Trained on 02 Feb 2023 |
| 3 | Koh Chek | 12 | 9 | 75% | 8 | Trained on 02 Feb 2023 |
| 4 | Praek Sombour | 11 | 11 | 100% | 8 | Trained on 02 Feb 2023 |
| 5 | Peam Montear | 6 | 5 | 83% | 8 | Trained on 03 Feb 2023 |
| 6 | CheangDek | 15 | 12 | 80% | 8 | Trained on 03 Feb 2023 |
| 7 | Cham | 12 | 10 | 83% | 8 | Trained on 04 Feb 2023 |
| 8 | Kampong Brasat | 14 | 11 | 79% | 8 | Trained on 11 Mar 2023 |
| 9 | Ansaong | 11 | 8 | 73% | 8 | Trained on 12 Mar 2023 |
| 10 | Chrey | 9 | 8 | 89% | 8 | Trained on 12 Mar 2023 |
| 11 | Sambok | 9 | 2 | 22% | 8 | Trained on 24 Mar 2023 |
| 12 | Sandan | 16 | 12 | 75% | 8 | Trained on 25 Mar 2023 |
| Total | 108 | 90 | 83% | 96 |
**See attached List of deployment and use trend of Cyber Security app integrated in NomadlLabs in CBOs and high schools with details and indicators: June 2023_Cyber Security_Indicators with gender_Deployments and use trend
Project Review and Assessment
Thanks to this project we could:
- Develop a new set of skills to go deeper in our mission to support digital inclusion: creation of online educational contents. It will be developed inside our other programs
- Develop a tool that can ease the interactive video learning development and use by all our trainers in their daily life. This tool is multi-language so also will be developed in PN Vietnam and Philippines
We have new opportunities to expand the project:
The Ministry of education will integrate our website into its online learning platform. The website will be available to all scholars from 12 to 18 years in Cambodia. Please discover the app of the link here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=gov.ministryedu.moeysapp&hl=en&gl=US
They used Moodle to create it, so the upgrade of the contents will be automatic as we will receive the visitors data on our website.
We plan to develop the paying version for employees of companies and a dedicated curriculum for them as well.
From December 2022 as explained previously our Web Security app aiming to reach the youths we focus to deploy it in our network of provincial high schools and youth clubs through our digital access solution (NomadLabs) and networks .
At the end of the project, with data collected in May and in June 2023, Web Security app is deployed in the planned high schools and CBO through the NomadLab solution. It is effectively a new category in NomadLab possible both offline and online used by the youth.
Gender Equity and Inclusion
Women
We target at least 60% of women users. PNC got already has more than 50% of girls in their programs.
Rural areas
All PNC students are selected from rural areas. We will promote the website during our selection visit to the field in order to promote digital literacy to the ones that could be the most excluded in the digital world.
**See attached List of NomadlLabs in CBOs and high schools already deployed and to deploy with details and indicators - special attention to gender equity: December2022_NL_CBO and High Schools with indicators
Number of NomadLabs (already deployed and to be deployed) / Number of potential young beneficiaries:
- CBO: 23 / 675 - including 487 girls so 72%
- High schools: 16 / 21 050 - including 11 680 girls so 55.5%
Trainers
- CBOs: trainers are young volunteers from the communities and their number change regularly. in average 3 trainers volunteers per NomadLab as facilitators. 23 NomadLabs so 69 young volunteers including 70% young women
- High schools: 3 teachers/librarians per NomadLab as facilitators within the libraries: 17 NomadLabs so 48 teachers/librarians including at least 50% women (librarians are generally more women). General information: in those 16 high schools total of 876 professors (teachers and librarians) - including 320 women so 36%.
At the end of the project, with data collected from May until June 2023, the implementation has been carried out effectively from February 1st to March 25th 2023 in 8 provinces representing 23 NomadLabs (11 high schools and 12 CBOs)
During the deployments in CBO 108 participants have been trained including 90 women or young girls so 83%.
During the deployments in High schools 233 participants have been trained including 137 women or young girls so 59%
In June estimation of users from February 1st to June 30th 2023 shows both in CBO and high schools, a total of 2166 user including 1353 girls representing almost 60%.
**See attached List of deployment and use trend of Cyber Security app integrated in NomadlLabs in CBOs and high schools with details and indicators: June 2023_Cyber Security_Indicators with gender_Deployments and use trend
Project Management
PNC and the Foundry are working in partnership for 2 years now. We organize regular meetings about the project coordination between the PNC country representative and the Foundry CEO and on technical topics between the technical staff.
The administration part of the project is not different from our usual business there is nothing special to comment on this point.
Thanks to this project we learn how to work for 2 organisations together and to compromise as we have different works method or tools. It helps us to be more flexible and think about how we proceed. For example we needed to find our communication tools, and sharing folders.
Project Sustainability
Once the website will be launched, The Foundry and PNC anticipate fixed costs notably related to maintenance, server or hosting fees. The Foundry offers to maintain the application over time as a door to promote its expertise and audit services to bigger organizations. However, to ensure the financial sustainability of the project, the application will be divided into two versions:
A standard version: made available for FREE. This version will provide access to all educational content as well as to a basic pre-post assessment of the users’ level of awareness and a personalized list of recommendations to improve their security online
A premium version: accessible for a fee. This version will provide access to additional premium features and is designed for businesses. It aims to help businesses promote and offer cybersecurity up-skilling to their staff. The premium version will let a company register their employees and track their progress to improve their progress. The premium dashboard will be accessible by management and will identify the issues and employees that need more training inside the business. It will also make more advanced recommendations on how to structure their processes to improve security. The premium version gives access to an assessment more specifically tailored to staff in non-IT savvy SMEs. Based on this assessment, SMEs will be able to better apprehend their firm's level of security and will benefit from personalized recommendations based on their needs.
From December 2022 we focus on the public version for youth.
The project implementation (deployments) has been completed on march 25th 2023, trainers trained and solution ready to be used offline or online by the young beneficiaries . And so on following implementation of next Nomadlabs in more areas, this as a means of sustainability of the project.
In February and march 2023 Cyber Security App offline has been installed in 23 NomadLabs representing 178 devices. During the deployment phase 341 persons have been trained including 227 girls and young women. Following the NomadLab project, Cyber Security as a specific category, will continue to be installed and trainers trained for the next deployments on the remaining sites in accordance with the project plan
Project Communication
Our primary target will be a broader audience of youths, especially youths with lower exposure to digital literacy both in Phnom Penh and in the provinces. PNC will leverage its network of 30 partner high schools and NGOs across 17 provinces in Cambodia, to reach out to the youths in the provinces. The audience will be youths interested in starting a career in the digital sector. While the information sessions’ primary aim is to raise awareness about career pathways, it would allow raising awareness about cybersecurity at the same time with the promotion and the demo of the app. Additionally, posters will be placed in the partner High Schools and NGOs to promote the app beyond the information sessions.
In addition to this, PNC will also integrate the basic learning on cybersecurity into its curriculum as part of the digital literacy training, before diving into more advanced cybersecurity training to prepare them to become IT, professionals. Every year, PNC could train around 75 new students using the app. This will include direct training in the classroom as well as self-learning by the students using the app.
NomadLab is our leverage targeting youths in the provinces and remote areas to provide access to tablets or laptops where training material will be available online or offline. We can reach 30 000 scholars around the country.
Project recommendations and use of findings
Doing this project is definitely a rich experience for the team. It helps us to gain a lot of new skills and other benefits as:
- Designing digital learning content
- Creating a tool to ease the creation of learning contents
- Increasing our knowledge and expertise about cybersecurity and digital awareness topics.
We learned as well a lot of things and we would proceed differently if would do this project again:
- We spent a lot of time creating video production tools, we should focus more on the content development.
- Working on the video contents in the Khmer language first and then translating it into English, we will proceed like this from now on
- We need to do more tests with the users
- Recruiting a “skilled writer” that could really create pedagogically and stories at ease. This has been a lacking skill among our team
- Asking for more support from IT experts regarding the IT Khmer vocabulary
- Using a simple way to export our videos to the website
- One person should have been recruited with the responsibility of the project only as we were working on it with others projects and tasks. Also, this person could have been allocated to the reporting.
Bibliography
- Data reportal website: https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-cambodia
- ADA Telco report.
- Reaping the Benefits of Industry 4.0 Through Skills Development in Cambodia: https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/671726/benefits-industry-skills-development-cambodia.pdf
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