National Information and Cybersecurity Council (NICC India) has announced grants up to Rs. 2 crores for Top Performing NICC – Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (CCoE).
The Cybersecurity Centre of Excellence (CCoEs) are established in various educational and corporate institutions all across the nation to catalyze innovation, entrepreneurship and capability building in cybersecurity and privacy. It is a joint initiative of the Government of India and NICC to fulfil NICC’s commitment towards creating a safe, secure and a trusted cyberspace. The primary objective is to build best practices, standards and execute initiatives in cybersecurity and privacy domain. CCoEs nurture a culture of innovation by, incubating cybersecurity start-ups, conducting trainings/workshops/events, hosting delegations and collaborating in local, national and international initiatives.
The CCoE should at least have a minimum of 2500+ individuals registered under their respective centers to be eligible to apply for this grant. NICC would evaluate the application and based on the internal assessment NICC would grant funds up to Rs. 2 crores in different phases to the host institutions. The grant can be used to procure infrastructure, build international level labs, collaborate with various industries/partners, spread more awareness about cyber safety to develop a cybersafe nation.
Shri. P Arjun, internationally renowned cyber expert, who currently heads Research and Operations at NICC is given this additional responsibility of identifying, establishing, developing and nurturing potential CCoEs across India.
Speaking on this occasion Mr. P Arjun said “To lay a strong foundation for cybersecurity, it is essential to entrust the future workforce with a lot more than just the adequate knowledge and resources. By collaborating with academia and R&D centers, we enable the torchbearers to ably scale up the cybersecurity ecosystem in the future. We foster an unmatched collaboration between research and innovation. CCoE primarily nurtures research in cybersecurity and privacy to promote innovation”.
The National Information and Cybersecurity Council (NICC) – which works to reduce risk to India’s cyber infrastructure – is leading a collaborative effort between government of India and industry to raise cybersecurity awareness nationally.
