The European Union’s objective is to increase public awareness of cybersecurity among SMEs and MEs. This plan is pursued under the GEIGER Framework, that includes the GEIGER Education Ecosystem consisting of the Education Provider Community and the Certified Security Defenders Community. The goal of the latter one includes the education of Certified Security Defenders. This Bachelor Thesis is a guide on how to build a community consisting of those Certified Security Defenders. Targeted for the pilot phase of this endeavour are students of the “Berufsfachschule Baden”.

First, the contracting party was to be familiarised with the term community. Subsequently, features of a successful community were revealed to be able to build a solid foundation in practice. Community building models based on the features were introduced. The application of the models took place with the principles of Design Thinking. Design Thinking was applied in the form of a Design Sprint which consisted of a workshop with a professional from this field. A hypothetical solution was developed and presented in the form of a simply described guide.

The problem definition, i.e., the formation of a cybersecurity community, was formulated very openly. It was found that an analytical and linear method in the form of a defined business plan thus could not lead to a satisfactory solution. This was because too many possibilities came into question, which could not be validated conclusively with an analytical approach, respectively not engaging with the target group. An agile and iterative method finally led to a possible solution approach. It was determined that when building a community, the human being must be placed at the centre to be able to effectively address the needs and problems of the members. Design Thinking has the potential to optimally pick up these problems and needs. The approach was presented in the form of a practical guide and a hypothetical prototype in the form of an online community platform was created. The recommendation to the contracting party, resulting from the findings of this work, is to put the presented community-building theories into practice with the application of Design Thinking.