KiberACS - Academy of Cybersecurity

The KiberACS initiative was created to address two converging challenges: the growing shortage of cybersecurity professionals in Latvia and the increasing cyber risks faced by organisations — particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), local municipalities and public institutions — that lack the resources to protect themselves.

Get to know the initiative

The programme is implemented by Riga Technical University and supported by an USD 850,000 grant from the Google.org Cybersecurity Seminars programme, delivered by Virtual Routes and designed to strengthen the cybersecurity workforce and improve cyber resilience in underserved communities across Europe and beyond. Training covers five key domains: cybersecurity governance, cyber hygiene, incident management, digital forensics and cybersecurity architecture. It specifically targets underrepresented groups — women and  students from outside the capital — opening pathways into a high-demand, well-paid profession and contributing directly to greater gender balance in the ICT workforce.

A defining feature of KiberACS is its structured internship component. After completing classroom training, students undertake mentored placements with regional SMEs, municipalities and public institutions. Each placement includes concrete, measurable deliverables: drafting internal cybersecurity policies, auditing technology inventories, designing incident response plans or delivering basic hygiene training to staff.

Why is this a good practice?

Traditional cybersecurity training requires long-term study and typically an IT or engineering background, creating a bottleneck that leaves many organisations underserved. KiberACS takes a fundamentally different approach: a competence-based curriculum aligned with ENISA guidance and the practical requirements of NIS2. Rather than training only deep technical specialists, the programme develops a broader range of skills that modern organisations urgently need — risk assessment, business process analysis, cyber hygiene, incident communication, internal policy development and reporting. This makes cybersecurity careers accessible to a much wider pool of talent, including individuals with non-technical backgrounds.

Organisations that could never afford dedicated cybersecurity support receive it directly, while students gain 
hands-on experience that makes them genuinely job-ready from day one. By early 2026, 198 students had completed training and 180 regional organisations — SMEs, municipalities, and public institutions across Latvia — had already received cybersecurity services through student placements. All educational materials will be published on a MOOC platform by April 2026, extending the initiative's reach far beyond its direct participants.