Session: Scaffolding the industry-academia gap in Cybersecurity
Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the process of being aware of one's own emotions to understand and influence the emotions of other individuals that one may encounter. And the fact that this virtue is under-rated is the reason why Cybersecurity is perceived wrongly amidst many individuals and one must be tactically astute with a figurative man-management skill to bring in more people into the Cybersecurity workforce because the world has no choice but to adapt to the fast paced digital stature in no time with the advent of the pandemic. As an industry professional working dynamically with academia being the Associate Lead for Education and Awareness tower of WISE (Women in Security Excelling) IBM India Chapter, I have an interesting responsibility that involves leading a diversified workforce and stakeholders, my stakeholders are tutees ranging from teenage to even people older than me wanting to transition into Cybersecurity or make a comeback after a long career gap. And as wisely said, “The fastest way to learn something is to start teaching it”, I have been a passionate learner myself because my work demands me to be agile in my role while wearing multiple hats from coaching, mentoring, and bringing people together to drive excellence and be a trusted advisor and an effective communicator.Besides I have also been leaping from one domain to another in the Cybersecurity domain which includes Application Security,Security Strategy,Risk and Compliance,Advisory Consulting,Marketingm,Public Speaking,Technical Writing,Identity and Access Management to name a few which makes the talk come from a place of hands-on experience and from witnessing the changing dynamics of this fast paced industry with the first hand experience.Human factor being the weakest and the strongest link, it’s important to step into the shoes of various mindsets causing transgressions, hence a diversified workforce is the need of the hour for the smooth functioning of the cyber world. And the finest picks happen to be lifetime learners because one cannot go dinosaur in Cybersecurity with technology dynamics constantly evolving else it will engender lukewarm results. And as wisely defined in the book “Cybersecurity Leadership” by Dr.Mansur Hasib, ”Cybersecurity is a People Powered Perpetual Innovation”,the aim of the talk is to bring forth the importance of the significant attributes that are required to bridge the industry-academia gaps which are an open mindset, design thinking approach,emotional intelligence (EQ) in the aforementioned areas thereby getting over the myths by bringing forth the facts.
Bio
Bishakha Jain is a multi-award-winning Cybersecurity Practitioner. She is a seasoned professional with a demonstrated history across telecommunication, marketing, cyber risk advisory, application security, identity access management, governance risk and compliance, strategy, user awareness training, third party risk management, education, public speaking and consulting domains.
Bishakha is an active Cybersecurity Evangelist and she serves as the Director and the Ambassador to India for the Cyber Security Global Alliance. She is the Brand Ambassador and Advisor for the Women in Cloud Network. She is the official Educator and Ambassador of International Imposter Syndrome Awareness Day. She also serves as the Council Representative of the Public Safety and Security Council,West Bengal. She is the recipient of the coveted IBM Volunteer Champion Award 2022. Bishakha has been listed "40 under 40 in Cybersecurity 2022" by Top Cyber News Magazine. She also won the Coveted Nari Samman Award 2022 powered by Literoma for her contribution in Cybersecurity and Womanhood.She was listed as one of the “Epic Women in Cyber” by the non-profit organisation of the same name in 2021.She has been the recipient of the prestigious "Values Champion Award" at Ericsson during Confluence 3.0.
She has been a Speaker at various conferences like Tech(K)nowDay 2021, Diana Initiative 2021,UKCSA Summit 2021,CSAM 2021,Day of Shecurity 2021,c0c0n 2021 etc to name a few and has trained Army Veterans,Police Candidates and Postgraduation and Graduation Students across various Universities of India like Chandigarh University,Symbiosis International University,Gujrat University etc and also been a Global Speaker invitee at Willis College Canada,OWASP WIA,OWASP New York City Chapter and PurePoint International.