Liberia Gears Up for Global Encryption Day 2025 with Youth Cybersecurity Symposium: WAICTANet Champions Technical Capacity, Advocacy & Encryption Rights
As Global Encryption Day 2025 approaches on 21 October, WAICTANet is spearheading a bold effort in Liberia—hosting a national youth cybersecurity symposium in Paynesville to fuse advocacy, skills development, and public policy direction. As a proud member of the Global Encryption Coalition, WAICTANet aims not only to celebrate encryption’s role in digital security, but to catalyze policy change—particularly pushing for a Personal Data Protection & Privacy Act and a stronger legal stance on encryption in Liberia.
Speaking from insights gained during recent training hosted by CIPESA in Namibia as part of this year’s digital rights circuit, Shardrack Mentowah—Technical Lead at WAICTANet—notes, “The Namibia training reinforced how encryption undergirds trust in digital systems. Here in Liberia, youth must grasp both the technical foundations and policy implications. Our symposium is a platform to bridge that knowledge gap and prepare a generation ready to defend privacy from the ground up.”
The event is designed as a bottom-up capacity building approach: through hands-on labs, peer learning, real case analysis, and awareness sessions, young people will gain cyber hygiene, cryptography awareness, safe communications, and data protection practices. This empowers not just students, but civil society and government staff to converge around shared norms and technical standards.
Moreover, this symposium aligns with regional and global momentum: the Global Encryption Coalition continues to rally civil society, tech platforms, and governments to defend strong encryption in policy forums. Global Encryption Coalition In this context, WAICTANet’s event is both timely and strategic—creating a pipeline of informed youth, motivating legal reform, and reinforcing Liberia’s voice in Africa’s encryption debates.
We call on the Liberian government to act decisively: finalize and enact national data protection legislation and adopt policies that defend strong encryption without weakening safeguards. As our digital future unfolds, the voices, skills, and choices of youth will anchor whether Liberia safeguards privacy—or risks exposure.
