IT minister to felicitate Cyber Security Grand Challenge winners

The winners of the Cyber Security Grand Challenge will be felicitated by the Union minister for electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw and MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Thursday. This is the “first of its kind cyber security challenge to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in the country,” read the press release issued by the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY).

It added, “The winner of the Cyber Security Grand Challenge is entitled for a prize money of INR one crore while the 1st runner-up and 2nd runner-up will win INR 60 lakh and INR 40 lakh respectively.” Furthermore, a unique feature of this competition is that the intellectual property rights of the created product will be owned by the respective start-up.

The Cyber Security Grand Challenge was collectively launched by the Data Security Council of India and the MeitY in January 2020 as a way to promote innovation and to motivate the growth and expansion of Indian cyber security products. It can be viewed live on DSC India’s official YouTube page from 10:30 am onwards.

The press release explains, “Participants had to create a solution among 6 defined problem statement areas and upon evaluation through three stages (Idea, MVP and Final), the winners have been chosen by an esteemed jury panel from Academia, Government, and Industry, chaired by Dr. Gulshan Rai, former National Cybersecurity Coordinator, GoI.”

In total, 76 ideas were submitted at the ‘Idea Stage’, consisting of 220 participants. After the selection process was over, shortlisted teams received ₹5 lakhs and ₹10 lakhs respectively. To finally create the product, multiple mentorship workshops were held to aid the participants.