IIT Kanpur signs MoU with Tel Aviv University for cyber security

Premier engineering institution gradually ramping up cyber security research in campus

Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (IIT-K) is gradually ramping up its cyber security research work in the campus and meticulously forging alliances with top institutions in the world.

In the latest development, IIT-K has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Blavatnik Interdisciplinary Cyber Research Center (ICRC) of Tel Aviv University. This would facilitate bi-lateral academic relationships, cooperative research and teaching projects in select fields.

"Blavatnik ICRC is a major cyber security centres in Israel and in the world," IIT-K Head of Computer Science and Engineering Department Professor Sumit Ganguly said while underlining the immense potential of the collaboration between the two organisations.

Under the tie-up, several types of projects have been envisioned wherein graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty exchange would become a regular feature to stimulate mutually beneficial research.

IIT-K has been in the process of building a centre of excellence in cyber security and the two institutions could collaborate effectively in their common goal of building cyber security technology and manpower in the respective countries, he added.

IIT-K had earlier engaged with the Tandon School of Engineering at New York University in student/faculty exchange and research collaboration.

"We hope that Tel Aviv University researchers will also find it very useful in having such international cooperation in developing cyber security research and technology portfolio," Ganguly said.

The two institutions have decided upon a few broad areas of study to help set guidelines for bi-lateral scientific relationships, cooperative research and teaching projects. These include smart agriculture, smart city, sewage and water treatment, machine learning, signal processing, alternative governance models for cyber security, big data analytics, utilities, transportation and privacy-preserving cryptography and cryptanalysis.

The MoU has been signed for a period of five years, which could be extended by a review and mutual agreement of the two institutions.