Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru and the British Asian Trust India supported by BT Group in India Partner to Deliver Advanced Cybersecurity Training for STEM Faculty

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru and the British Asian Trust India,  supported by BT Group, have entered into a unique collaboration to launch an advanced cybersecurity training programme for STEM faculty across India. The programme is supported by BT Group in India through a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) grant, with support from the UK-India Future Networks Initiative (UKI-FNI), a joint endeavour between universities in India and the UK supported by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The initiative entitled “Empowering STEM Faculty through Cybersecurity Faculty Development Programme (FDP)” will empower STEM faculty to integrate cutting-edge cybersecurity knowledge into teaching and research, thereby strengthening India’s academic and research capabilities in emerging areas of cybersecurity. It will focus on both theoretical foundations and hands-on expertise in cybersecurity. It will place special emphasis on training women faculty from tier-2 cities.

Through this initial collaboration, Indian Institute of Science and British Asian Trust India aim to:

• Train over 100 faculty members on advanced cybersecurity topics.  It is hoped they in turn will act as ambassadors and will pass on their new found knowledge to others.
• Create a knowledge-sharing platform to foster collaboration and sustainable development.
• Enable faculty to design new courses, conduct impactful research, and contribute to building a skilled cybersecurity workforce in India.

“This capacity building effort will draw from and add to the already strong collaboration between UK and Indian partners on the Future Networks Initiative, and drive safer digital inclusion,” said Prof Rajesh Sundaresan, Dean, Division of Electrical, Electronics, and Computer Sciences (EECS) at IISc.

Speaking on this important initiative, Bharath Visweswariah, Executive Director, the British Asian TrustIndia stated-

“Our partnership with IISc and the UK-India Future Networks Initiative brings together the best of academic excellence and international collaboration. By strengthening faculty expertise in future-ready telecom areas like cybersecurity, we’re helping build an ecosystem of educators who can prepare India’s youth for tomorrow’s digital economy.”

This partnership marks a significant step towards a secure and resilient digital future for India by promoting cybersecurity research, teaching, and workforce development.

The programme will cover a number of areas including cybersecurity frameworks and enterprise risk; network forensics and traffic analysis; malware analysis and memory forensics.  It will also expose faculty to niche areas such as Telecom/IoT/operational technology (OT) systems security.

“I am particularly delighted that through our strong collaboration with IISc, we have helped facilitate this link with BT Group in India and the British Asian India Foundation in a subject domain that is extremely important to the Digital Economy of India and, indeed, the UK,” said Prof Gerard Parr, Lead of the UK-India Future Networks Initiative. “The UKI-FNI Project will provide feedback, advice and mentorship from our partners, specifically, University College London and the University of East Anglia, together with colleagues in Kings College London, University of Surrey and University of Southampton”

Future phases of the initiative are aimed at engaging more faculty members and rolling out the training to other regions across India.