The Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) has announced an Advanced Certification Program in Cyber Security and Cyber Defense in partnership with TalentSprint. The program is designed for current and aspiring professionals who are keen to explore and exploit the latest trends in cyber security technologies. A combination of deep academic rigor and intense practical approach will allow participants to master in-demand skills and build world class expertise. The first cohort will start in early 2020.
IIT Kanpur, established in 1959, is widely recognized as a global trailblazer in computer science research and education. Most recently, IIT Kanpur has taken the lead in cyber security by setting up the Interdisciplinary Centre for Cyber Security and Cyber Defence of Critical Infrastructures (C3i). The mission of C3i is research, education, and training, and also spawn startups to create technological safeguards to protect critical national infrastructure. The centre collaborates with other global centres of excellence and is positioned to become a world leader in cyber security.
Shri Jayesh Ranjan, IT Secretary, Govt. of Telangana; said, Telangana is the first state in the country which created a dedicated policy on Cyber Security, one of the key features of the policy is we will create an army of cyber warriors, the idea is we create trained professionals at two levels, one at the mass awareness level where everyone understands the basics of cyber security and at the same time we want a very highly specialised niche segment of people to understand the high end levels of cyber security, solutions, programs, algorithms. I have couple of suggestions to make, we should have participants actually tracking or working on live problems, live cyber security solutions, the reason is along with the Data Security Council of India, the Government of Telangana has set up Centre of excellence on cyber security, we have conducted a couple of workshops to gather used cases from Government, Private agencies, there is a bank of all kinds of used case scenarios, we can pull out some used cases and make them available to the participants, we would be happy to do so. The second is, just to create a stronger Hyderabad and Telangana association, I would suggest at the end of the course the certificate distribution can happen in Hyderabad, so that the participants can continue to remain engaged with Hyderabad, even if they work elsewhere, they can continue to remain connected with Centre of Excellence, work on live cases and create solutions, the centre will also create opportunity to start Start-ups, that way we can have deeper engagement with Hyderabad and Telangana. The Advanced Certification Program in Cyber Security and Cyber Defense by IIT Kanpur and TalentSprint is a 6 months course spanning over 120 hours, which is more practical oriented with actual cyber problems, the intake for the first batch intake is 50 candidates.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Manindra Agrawal, Program Director and Professor of Computer Science at IIT Kanpur, said,`It is estimated that there will be roughly 200 billion connected devices by 2020. Rapid convergence of Mobility, Internet of Things and Cloud Computing is leading to an explosive increase in security threats and the need for Cyber Defense experts to combat these threats is becoming all the more important. Our program will leverage the deep research capabilities of C3i to arm technology professionals with the right expertise to counter a wide range of emerging threats and vulnerabilities.”
Dr. Santanu Paul, Co-Founder and CEO of TalentSprint, said: “We are delighted to partner with IIT Kanpur on a mission to create Cyber Security experts. The demand for such professionals is outstripping supply. Companies need sophisticated responders to defend against the growing threat of cyberattacks. There is a huge talent crunch and 59% of the companies have vacant positions suggesting a cumulative global shortfall of 1.5 million such professionals. Its a 120 hours program spread over six months, there is 3 day initiation boot camp at IIT Kanpur, followed by six months of attending live classes on the laptop and at the end of the program another boot camp at IIT Kanpur, that is two boot camps and rest is high intensity online learning, the program is priced at Rs 2.5 lakhs.”
B Sambamurthy said, there are only two types of organisations, those who are hacked and the other is those who do not know that they are already hacked. The intensity of cyber attacks is growing day by day and there are two fundamental reasons according to me, one is the usual suspect of very bad coding practices, the other is dearth of cyber security specialists. There are several certification programs across the world, these are there to help get a job but not really to get the job done. Therefore we need experienced learning, I understand this course is experienced learning which can help to defend the organisation.
According to NASSCOM, India’s cyber security market is projected to grow to $35 billion by 2025.This 6-month Advanced Certification Program in Cyber Security and Cyber Defense will be delivered in an executive-friendly format with immersion bootcamps at the IIT Kanpur campus, complemented by live online interactive sessions via the TalentSprint digital platform. Program participants will also get direct exposure to C3i and its research expertise during their visits to IIT Kanpur. In addition, TalentSprint will curate state-of-the-art capstone projects for program participants, and actively leverage its digital platform for the purpose of accelerated experiential learning.