WB3C joins UK's regional CybHER initiative empowering women and girls for cyber careers

07.11.2025

We are proud to be part of the regional CybHER initiative by the British Council, designed to empower girls and women across the Western Balkans to pursue and thrive in cyber careers. For the WB3C, CybHER is not only a regional effort we support, but also a concrete opportunity to invest in our own people and create space for their professional development.

As part of this, WB3C took part in two CybHER components:
1️⃣ A leadership program for early-career women in cybersecurity.
2️⃣ A workshop on gender-sensitive HR policies for cybersecurity organizations.

1. Leadership skills for early-career women in cyber

Our colleague Vanja Radović is representing the WB3C in the CybHER leadership track for young women in cybersecurity. This program is designed to help participants gain both the mindset and the skills needed to grow and lead in a still male-dominated industry. Over the course of the program, participants will:

💡 Build authentic leadership skills by exploring their personal values, leadership styles and emotional intelligence.
💡 Discover diverse cybersecurity career paths and map concrete options for their own development.
💡 Learn practical strategies to navigate stereotypes, bias and workplace barriers with confidence.
💡 Strengthen networking and collaboration skills to build a reliable support system in the sector.
💡 Develop a personal action plan to apply what they learn in their daily work.

We are especially glad that Vanja will learn from experienced regional leaders such as Larisa Halilovic, an international leadership expert, and Andreja Mihailović, PhD, President of Women4Cyber Montenegro, whose guidance connects technical careers with the human skills needed for leadership.

2. Gender-sensitive HR policies in cybersecurity organisations

In parallel, WB3C also joined the CybHER workshop on gender-sensitive HR policies in cybersecurity organizations, focusing on how organizational systems can either open doors for women - or quietly keep them closed. This component, was followed by our colleague Vanja Madzgalj, responsible for strategic communications and with substantive experience in gender mainstreaming, in order to:

💡 Exchange experiences and good practices between companies on inclusive and fair HR approaches.
💡 Look at domestic and international trends in gender-sensitive and inclusive HR in tech and cybersecurity.
💡 Examine how bias, discrimination, the glass ceiling and everyday prejudices show up in recruitment, promotion and leadership opportunities.
💡 Explore practical ways to improve the full HR cycle: from inclusive job descriptions and selection processes, to advancement, leadership roles and supportive workplace culture.
💡 Discuss mechanisms for safety and confidential reporting, and how policies can better protect and empower staff who experience harassment or discrimination.

The workshop concluded with self-assessment of existing HR practices, individual commitments for change and first steps towards mentoring and peer support, so that policy discussions can translate into everyday practice.

At the Western Balkans Cyber Capacity Centre (WB3C), we believe that real change happens when we work on both people and systems. By empowering our own female colleagues through programs like CybHER, and by strengthening HR and organizational practices that support them, we are investing in a cybersecurity community where women can enter, stay, grow and lead.

Other news and events

Visit to RACVIAC, Zagreb

The WB3C Programme Director participated in the conference organised by RACVIAC in Zagreb, entitled “Strengthening SEE Resilience in Cyber Security Against Hybrid Threats.”
The mission provided an opportunity to present the Centre’s activities and discuss several potential areas of cybersecurity cooperation.

The areas under consideration include strengthening the cyber resilience of critical entities in the Western Balkans through NIS2 training and technical training aimed at addressing the skills gap in operational technology security, with priority given to young civilian and military talent.

They also include training on artificial intelligence and the implications of the European Union’s AI Act, the development of new cybersecurity curricula with universities and military academies in the region, and the possibility of providing cybersecurity training to military units in cooperation with RACVIAC.

Foreign Ministers of Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia visit WB3C on the margins of the Berlin Process

We were much honoured to host today at WB3C the Foreign Ministers of Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia, together with their delegations, following the Berlin Process Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Montenegro.
Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Federal Minister for European and International Affairs of Austria, Petr Macinka, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic and Juraj Blanár, Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia were welcomed by Naim M. GJOKAJ, on behalf of the Government of Montenegro as one of WB3C’s founding partners, and Gilles Schwoerer, WB3C Programme Director. The visit was also attended by Minsiter Marash Dukaj and resident ambassadors of Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic in Montenegro.

Their visit gave us an important opportunity to show, first-hand, what WB3C has become and where it is heading.
After a tour of our facilities, we presented the Centre’s mission and work across cybersecurity, cybercrime, cyber diplomacy and hybrid threats, as well as the partnerships that make this regional model possible. Particular attention was given to our cooperation with the European Union, including the EU-supported regional programme, and to the growing network of European and international institutions contributing expertise to our activities.
What matters most is the purpose behind this work.
WB3C was created to give the Western Balkans a permanent facility where countries can build capability together: strengthening public institutions and critical entities, supporting law enforcement and the judiciary, developing the skills of the existing workforce and investing in the next generation through cooperation with universities.

Austria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are closely engaged in the European integration of the Western Balkans, while the Berlin Process continues to place regional cooperation, security and the region’s European future at the centre of the agenda.
For WB3C, the longer-term direction is equally clear: a Centre increasingly shaped, supported and governed by the Western Balkans themselves, firmly connected to European institutions, standards and expertise.
We greatly appreciated the ministers’ interest in our work and the opportunity to present the role WB3C can play in making regional cooperation in cyber security practical, lasting and genuinely owned by the region.

Advanced Cyber Threat Intelligence training at WB3C

This week, WB3C hosted an Advanced Cyber Threat Intelligence (CTI) training in Podgorica, delivered by Ljuban Petrovic for SOC, CSIRT, CERT and IT professionals from critical entities across the Western Balkans.
Building on the foundational CTI course delivered earlier this year, the four-day programme goes further into advanced threat hunting, Threat Intelligence Platforms and automation, threat actor profiling and attribution, the MITRE ATT&CK framework, strategic reporting and hands-on work with MISP.
The aim is to help practitioners move from collecting technical threat data to producing actionable intelligence that supports detection, incident response and decision-making, while strengthening information sharing between national and regional CERT/CSIRT structures.
We are especially pleased to see more women then men in this training, which encourages us that our region is slowly breaking cultural barriers and biases.