Grade 8 students were educated on the issues of cybersecurity, while Grade 11 and 12 students had a fruitful career counselling session, both of which were conducted by experts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch at the SMART Campus.

The cybersecurity talk organised in November 2018, served dual objectives. The first objective was to create awareness among students regarding cyber wellness and how they can protect their personal data from being misused. Mr Boon Chik Eo, a Business Information Security professional in Bank of America, delivered an interesting presentation that highlighted key issues like types of cyber scam, how to stop phishing messages, tips to protect personal data, what is appropriate content and various related issues.

The presentation was followed by an escape room exercise where students had to crack a mystery by solving a series of 6 puzzles. They were divided into two teams and were provided with a set of interesting clues to solve the mystery. This exercise was a great way to teach children about tracing the origin of phishing emails.

The second part of the cybersecurity talk was conducted as a career counselling session where Grade 11 and 12 students were provided information related to pursuing IT career in the Banking industry. Three top professionals from Bank of America shared their journey into their present careers. Post this, the students asked pertinent questions related to IT career in Banking and got useful insights from the experts.

The entire session turned out to be useful for the students in more than one way. Students not only understood the importance of cybersecurity but were also inspired to explore technology-related career in banking.