Manipal Global Education Services (MaGE) and Deakin University,
Australia has announced a strategic alliance to start education and training
programs and establish Data Science and Cyber Security Centre of Excellence.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was signed between Professor Jane den
Hollander AO, Vice-Chancellor and President of Deakin University and
A P Ramabhadran, Senior Vice President, Manipal Global Education Services.
This MOU marks the coming together of two dominant professional
education providers to formulate and derive solutions to valuable corporate and
societal problems and construct new machine learning technologies to
interrogate relevant data. The scope of this engagement involves solving sector
specific big data problems, developing new knowledge and practices in new
complex problems and bringing methodological consistency that are particularly
relevant to the Indian context.
Expanse of Internet in India has led to a quick adoption of
technology by businesses and enterprises. The Digital India initiative by the
Government is accelerating the adoption of Digital Technologies by its
citizens. Increasing use of technology in the form of Mobile Banking and
Payment Wallets, eCommerce and Online Education are opening avenues
for cyber-crimes and cyber-attacks on banks, large
financial institutions, manufacturing organizations and hacking of personal
information from social media sites. These incidents have the potential to
cause heavy disruptions in the Digital India initiative designed to transform
the country.
Ranked in the top two percent of world universities by Academic
Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Deakin University is
a world-class institute with cutting-edge facilities and
renowned quality of research and teaching. Backed by a strong cyber security
department, Deakin offers various courses, certificates and research offerings
in the sector. The Centre for Pattern Recognition and Data Analytics (PRaDA) at
Deakin University discover patterns in big and lean data, and use these insights
to solve real-world problems. Researchers at PRaDA develop new tools
and technologies that harness data for practical use.
The Cyber Security
course under this MOU will offer sound knowledge and understanding of threats
and challenges, concepts and practices applied in Cyber Security. Curriculum
will be industry specific and students picking up the courses will also learn
the skill of computer crime and digital forensics, evaluating software for
security vulnerabilities, designing secure databases, securing operating
systems, performing risk assessments, integrating security requirements into
new developments, designing secure network architectures, assessing and
reinforcing the security of websites, responding to cyber security incidents.
Students will develop skills that are crucial to the success of
the country’s digital future while gaining the expertise required to take on
roles as an expert on Cyber Security and Data Sciences in technology companies,
government organizations and law enforcement agencies.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr H Vinod Bhat, Vice Chancellor Manipal
University said “Manipal
University and Deakin have always enjoyed strong collaborative relationship.
With the signing of the MOU, the relationship with Deakin deepens by ushering
in an era of professional education partnership along with the strong
university relationship."
A P Ramabhadran, Senior Vice President, Manipal Global Education
services said “The
MOU enables Manipal Global’s professional services arm to bring in solutions to
industry which can help solve reskilling challenges in the digital and cyber
security space. The Centre of Excellence will throw open solutions already
existing with the "Pattern Recognition and Data Analytics Centre” at
Deakin Australia to solve analytics challenges faced in the healthcare, IT and
BFSI sectors. In addition, the COE will also work to solve, through cutting
edge Machine Learning and Big Data solutions, the larger societal challenges in
India relating to Financial Inclusion, Education and Healthcare" he added.
The COE intends to investigate and discover valuable problems in
key technology areas in the Indian ecosystem – health, insurance, banking,
security and education. It will add early value into the corporate sector by
enabling it to solve problems which have already been tackled globally, hence
enabling translation of global learnings with speed into India.
Dr. Yogesh Bhatt, Head and Director of Manipal Global Academy of
IT said “It is a very exciting
time as the Indian IT industry embarks upon a transformation journey
necessitated by a combination of environmental factors that include
technologies in digital age, automation and global trend of protectionism and
localization. While these factors pose a significant challenge in the short
term, if we look at history of Indian IT industry, we have always responded to
external challenges, recovered from the setbacks, and benefitted from the same.
As I see, there is a great opportunity for Indian IT Industry to focus on
skilling current and future IT workforce on new age skills. Manipal Global
Academy of IT and Data Science has been working towards this mission with many
of our Industry partners. This MOU with Deakin university is a very significant
step for us, where we can combine the deep expertise and research capabilities
of Deakin University, with the industry focus, industry partners and
scalability capabilities of Manipal Global.”
Commenting on the
alliance, Professor Jane den Hollander
AO, Vice-Chancellor and President of Deakin University said, “We
are delighted to partner with a reputed education provider like Manipal Global
which has a history of delivering unmatched education and deep rooted corporate
connects. The COE intends to develop innovative solutions for relevant
societal problems through data and work with corporates to deliver creative
solutions. Our courses are specifically designed and tailor made to get hands
on experience in sectors like BFSI, IT and Manufacturing which are prone to
threats.”
