Students from NIIT University Hack their Way to Entrepreneurship

Who would have thought that tech giants Microsoft, Adobe or Yahoo would have security bugs in their websites? It took two teenagers from India to point out bugs that could potentially have led to a hacking attack and caused financial loss to these behemoths.

For their amazing intrusion detection abilities, Shikhil Sharma and Ananda Krishna, then 19, received a cheque for US$1000 from Yahoo, spurring them to burn the midnight oil and create an Intrusion Detection Software, Astra, while pursuing a 4-year residential program at NIIT University’s sprawling campus in the Aravali ranges, 90 kilometres from Delhi. The duo launched a startup Czar Securities www.czarsecurities.com to sell their product.

Astra secures websites of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and e-commerce portals from attacks by sneaky hackers who have the devious ability to override standard security software on websites. What started as a hobby for Shikhil Sharma and Ananda Krishna, who are both 21 now, was strengthened by technology grounding as part of their BTech Computer Science program at NIIT University (NU). Now in their final year of studies at NU, Shikhil and Ananda value the amazing support they got from their alma mater--a dedicated development area and mentoring by faculty and industry mentors.

“NU’s committed and well-networked faculty and industry counsellor helped us create a product that is used by dozens of paying SME users. We’ll further enhance Astra by leveraging advanced intelligent algorithms, machine learning concepts and web intelligence,” says Shikhil.

The crowning glory for Shikhil and Ananda was winning the Top Technology Innovation award at “6th All China University Software Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition, hosted at Wuxi, China” where students from over 300 universities from Asia demonstrated their Tech Innovations.

“After several rounds of evaluation with diverse industry judges over three months we were confident of winning the award when the organisers decided to underwrite our entire trip to China to make a presentation to a packed auditorium of over 2000,”says Shikhil adding that a handsome cash award was an icing on the cake for their fledgling start-up, Czar Securities.

Ananda Krishna’s scores at Delhi Public School RK Puram and continuing excellent academic performance at NU have earned him a scholarship for the entire duration of the program.

When questioned if they considered themselves as geniuses, Shikhil and Ananda look embarrassed before Shikhil says that two of their batch-mates were selected to the prestigious ‘Google Summer of Code’, and five of them presented research papers in Singapore and China. A similar number went on to pick up Inter University Sports medals in Football, Snooker and Cricket.

“Well, we are unique because we are the only ones to launch a start-up while studying at NU,” adds Ananda who is part of the 4th batch of the University that offers BTech programs in Computer Science & Engineering, Electronics & Communication Engineering, and Biotechnology.

The duo acknowledges the insights they got from their mentor Dr Kamlesh Bajaj who served as CEO of Data Security Council of India supported by NASSCOM and NU’s academic leaders and founders.