International visit to the CyberCampus NRW (CCNRW) in Mönchengladbach. The new US Consul General in North Rhine-Westphalia, Preeti V. Shah, was a guest and took a look at the campus and the programmes in the field of IT security.
"Cybercrime knows no borders. We can only win this battle together. I've heard a lot about this campus in conversations and wanted to see it for myself," said Shah during her visit to Mönchengladbach. In addition to the trip to the CCNRW, the program also included an appointment with Mönchengladbach's Lord Mayor Felix Heinrichs.
"We feel very honored by your visit. Having recently established a number of partnerships with US universities, we are delighted that a high-ranking US diplomat is interested in our cyber security services," said University President Dr. Thomas Grünewald in his welcoming speech.
As part of the tour, Professor Dr. Jürgen Quade presented a fictitious criminal case that students on the Bachelor's degree program in Digital Forensics have to solve. This involves searching for digital clues to solve a crime. The professor also gave a vivid demonstration of how hackers spread harmful ransomware and how quickly your own digital device can be affected.
Preeti V. Shah has been Consul General at the US Consulate General in Düsseldorf since August 2024. The official district of the US Consulate General Düsseldorf covers the whole of North Rhine-Westphalia. Shah was born in Philadelphia and grew up as the daughter of Indian immigrants in a suburb of Detroit. She joined the diplomatic service of the United States of America in 2004. Before coming to Düsseldorf in August 2024, she was stationed in Nicaragua, Turkey, Afghanistan, Mexico and Indonesia.
The Hochschule Niederrhein and Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg have joined forces to form the CCNRW. The Hochschule Niederrhein's Mönchengladbach campus offers the Cyber Security Management (Bachelor's and Master's) and Digital Forensics (Bachelor's) degree programmes. The Sankt Augustin campus of Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences offers the Cyber Security & Privacy (Bachelor's & Master's) degree programme.
