The programme would be used to train and equip post-graduate students with requisite knowledge and skills in cybercrime to build the critical human resources needed to combat cybercrime.

The President of ANU, Dr Samuel Donkor, made this known when he cut the sod for the construction of a multidisciplinary four-storey building meant to spur the university’s efforts to run a number of innovative undergraduate and post-graduate programmes.

On completion, the multi-million project would among others, have a full block dedicated to hosting the students’ operations centre (SOC), which he said would be the first of its kind in Africa to be used to train students in cybercrime.

“This will also be a centre where we will bring all the institutions that are interested in monitoring cyber-attacks and limiting cyber threats and we already have the equipment to make this centre operations as soon as possible,” he stated.

The ANU president said given the fact that Ghana’s economy was fast becoming the digital, there was an urgent need to train students to help fight cyber threats.

He explained that currently, the banking sector and payment system in general were becoming digital, paving the way for electronic transfers of money.

“Today, due to the high use of the internet and satellite technology, we have people who are constantly stealing people’s money and data.

“In the past, you have to take a gun to a bank in order to rob a bank but today you sit in your kitchen and yet you can access, through the internet, the bank’s vault and pull out a lot of money electronically into your account.

“So, as a country without us training people to mitigate against these threats is a like an open market for the thieves and the bad guys who must be stopped,” he said.

Shedding light on the new school project, Dr Donkor said the project would be phased out in such a manner that the first classrooms would ready for us this year, while “the rest will take a little while.”

“Because it is a huge building stretching from the administration block all the way all the way to the soccer field, we will try to add a floor to the building every year,” he said.

Touching the recognition attained by the university from the African Union (AU) recently, he said all universities from almost every country in Africa competed and presented a number of innovative projects to the African Union (AU).

He said although 50 universities with the best projects were selected, ANU was selected among the best three universities due to its “Virtual Industrial Tour and Learning Technology Laboratory” project.

He also pointed out that the university was currently leading experts from eight African countries to design and develop the first constellation of small satellites to help solve environmental problems in Africa.

The university’s African Constellation Satellite project would help the participating countries to build satellites that met “all the specification that the United Nations requires before you can launch a satellite into orbit.”