Latvia opens applications for free cybersecurity programme for teenagers

Applications have opened for Uzlauz. Mācies. Aizsargā. (Hack. Learn. Protect.), a free cybersecurity programme that will teach 15- to 18-year-olds from across Latvia the basics through practical tasks. It is run by the Ilvesa Foundation together with the Youth Guard Centre, a Defence Ministry body, and aims to take in up to 300 young people, LSM, the Latvian public broadcaster, reported. Applications are made on the programme's website, aizsarga.lv.

Who can apply

Anyone aged 15 to 18 can apply, and no previous knowledge is needed because the programme starts with the basics. Applicants aged 15 to 17 must confirm that their parents or guardians know about the application. An application only counts once the email address has been confirmed through a link sent by email. Participants will be recruited and selected in November and December; the website gives no closing date for participant applications.

How it works

It is not a classroom course. Participants will solve practical tasks online in a safe training environment — the Bonfire platform of the Danish company Campfire Security — earning points and comparing individual and team results. They need a computer, internet access and about four to five hours a month, and no special software has to be installed. Five thematic blocks cover cybersecurity and ethics basics, working with Linux, open-source intelligence (OSINT), computer networks, responding to security incidents and protecting websites.

The organisers stress that participants will not learn to break into real systems. The programme opens with a compulsory briefing on ethics and safe conduct, and all tasks take place only in a controlled training environment. Training starts in January 2027 and runs until May, followed in June by a national final built around a capture-the-flag (CTF) challenge, with winners honoured individually and as teams.

Regional teams and a girls' community

Participants will compete in five regional teams — Riga, Vidzeme, Latgale, Zemgale and Kurzeme — with at least one in-person event planned in each region. A separate girls' community has also been set up with Riga TechGirls, and girls can choose one team: their region or the girls' group. “Cybersecurity is teamwork,” Colonel Valts Āboliņš, director of the Youth Guard Centre, told the regional news site ZiemelLatvija.lv.

Instructors wanted

Instructors — computing teachers, IT and cybersecurity specialists and others — can apply until 30 November. Twelve group leaders will be selected and paid a stipend: two for each regional group and two for the girls' group. The programme is funded by Fonds AUGT, the mobile operator LMT, the plywood maker Latvijas Finieris and the Danish Cultural Institute, with academic support from Riga Technical University.