SecurIT 2012 concludes at Amrita Varsity

The three-day international conference, SecurIT 2012, on the ‘Security of Internet of Things’ at the Amrita University in Amritapuri, concluded on Monday.

Venkat Rangan, Vice-Chancellor of the Amrita University, said that the university will be starting Masters and PhD programmes in Cyber Security in collaboration with foreign universities for providing solutions to the potential problems in the field of ‘Security of Internet of Things’, as the deliberations at the conference highlighted the need for more research in the field.

He also announced that the Amrita University and the State University of New York at Buffalo would jointly start the masters course in Embedded Systems.

“The University of California, San Diego had also agreed to collaborate for studies in Wireless Embedded Systems,” he said.

Mata Amritanandamayi, the Chancellor of the Amrita University, during her interaction with technology experts and scientists participating in the conference, spoke about the need to focus on the societal benefits from cyber security research. She also emphasised on the need to educate students about the emerging challenges in this area and impart to them skills for responding to cyber security threats. A total of 500 participants attended the conference.

Overall 180 papers were received and around 34 were selected to be presented. The conference included various events such as technical presentations, posters, hands-on workshops, and tutorials on various key security topics. The ‘Pitchfest’ held on the sidelines of the conference provided a unique opportunity to creative entrepreneurs to ‘pitch’ in their business ideas to a panel of judges and venture capitalists. The winners won Rs 20 lakh as prize money. A total of 168 teams from technical institutions across 21 states participated in the sCTF (Capture the Flag) contest held as part of the conference.

After a six-hour long grueling contest, NIT Calicut, NIT Suratkal and College of Engineering, Thrissur won the top three prizes respectively from 30 finalists.