SISA Ties up With SRM University to Equip Students for High-Demand Cyber, AI Roles Amid Rising Threats

Cybersecurity company SISA and Chennai-based SRM University on Wednesday announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to advance cybersecurity education and skill development in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence in India. The collaboration will focus on equipping students with industry-relevant skills for in-demand roles and address the country’s growing cybersecurity and AI talent gap.

Speaking on the tie-up, Founder and CEO of SISA, Dharshan Shanthamurthy said the MoY will not only address today’s skill gap but also nurturing the next generation of cybersecurity innovators.

The MoU comes after the crucial announcement of Pradhan Mantri Viksit Bharat Rozgar Yojana by the Prime Minister during his Independence Day speech this year. The scheme is targeted to boost youth employment, benefiting 3.5 crore youth with an outlay of Rs 1 lakh crore.

Shanthamurthy said the partnership with SRM will empower students to co-create frameworks, develop solutions for emerging threats, and gain hands-on exposure to enterprise-grade tools. 

“The impact will extend far beyond classrooms, shaping a stronger, safer global cybersecurity landscape.”

According to SISA, the country reported over two million cybersecurity incidents in 2024 -- one in every 15 seconds including a significant breach every 7.5 hours. On the other hand, India’s digital economy is racing toward the $1 trillion mark by 2027–28, powered by rapid cloud adoption, IT modernisation, and new regulatory mandates like the Data Protection Act. 

“This explosive growth has exposed a critical weakness: the country simply does not have enough skilled professionals to defend its digital backbone. With demand for one million cybersecurity experts by 2025 and only half that talent available, the skills gap is no longer an industry concern but a national security challenge,” it said.

The collaboration between SISA and SRM was formally launched with the inauguration of a Hackathon Challenge, offering students exposure to evolving cyber threats, compliance requirements, and industry-grade security tools in which over 200 students participated.

“Cybersecurity is not a subject you can master from textbooks, it requires immersion in real-world scenarios where threats evolve by the minute. To prepare students for this new reality, it is imperative for us as educators to give them structured, hands-on programs that build skills in a host of cybersecurity areas like identity and access management, threat detection, compliance, and cloud security,” said Dr. Revathi Venkataraman, Professor & Chairperson, School of Computing, SRMIST.

SISA said it will also provide special training sessions, limited to 60 hours annually, for the broader cybersecurity student community at SRM University. The university will utilise SISA’s AI-driven cybersecurity platform to train students and integrate it into the curriculum.