(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 9.​ Information security and cybersecurity are no longer just technological issues but have also become one of the main tools for economic security, sustainable development, and a competitive economy in a digitalized world, Azerbaijan's First Deputy Minister of Economy Elnur Aliyev said at the opening ceremony of CIDC 2025-Critical Infrastructure Defence Challenge cybersecurity festival in Baku, Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

The official mentioned that three key ingredients consistently hit the nail on the head across different arenas of endeavor: regulatory mechanisms, tools (technical and technological solutions), and human capital.

The National Strategy of Azerbaijan on Information Security and Cybersecurity for 2023-2027 identifies priority areas related to information security and cybersecurity and prioritizes the formation of a national cybersecurity ecosystem, protection of critical information infrastructure, establishment of National Cyber ​​Training Centers and relevant laboratories, establishment of public-private partnerships in the field, and formation of human resources.

The Digital Development Concept in Azerbaijan and the Artificial Intelligence Strategy of Azerbaijan for 2025-2028 are particularly important in terms of the country's digital transformation, the formation of new intellectual products, the management of large volumes of data, the creation of artificial intelligence solutions, the formation of a startup ecosystem, and the fact that all this serves economic development and digital sovereignty.

Aliyev underscored the significance of the Coursera National Academy initiative orchestrated by the Ministry to enhance digital competencies, highlighting its pivotal role in this context.

"To date, approximately 40,000 participants have engaged in over 187,000 educational modules via the platform, with a successful completion rate exceeding 68,000. The project encompasses an extensive portfolio of over 600 cybersecurity training modules in total.

In aggregate, over 276,000 hours of pedagogical content have been consumed, underscoring the escalation in digital fluency, technological assimilation, and domain-specific capabilities within this nation.

Initiatives of this nature yield a beneficial influence on the development of human capital within the realms of information security and cybersecurity, and it is advantageous to scale up such initiatives," he added.

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