WCR’18

Despite the tremendous advancements in the field of Cybersecurity, there is a significant shortage in the number of skilled women professionals and researchers in this arena. The workshop on Women in Cybersecurity Research (WCR’18) is an initiative to empower women aspirants to expand their potential and contribute better to closing the current skills gaps in Cyber Security. WCR’18 seeks to provide a platform for women researchers to address challenges and furnishes them with opportunities to discuss recent developments and share lessons learned and best practices in Cybersecurity research..To this end, the workshop brings together teachers, research scholars, master students and corporate professionals. The workshop will include talks by experts in the field, poster presentations, short talks, project demos and hands-on sessions. The workshop aims to explore the women research endeavors to impart safe and secure cyber experience.

The Workshop on Women In Cybersecurity Research (WCR’18) is jointly organized by Center for Research and Innovation in Cyber Threat Resilience (CRICTR), Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management – Kerala (IIITM-K), ACM Trivandrum Professional Chapter and IEEE Communication Society Kerala Chapter. WCR’18 will be held at IIITM-K, Technopark, Trivandrum on May 25-26, 2018.

The two-day workshop showcased insightful sessions by eminent speakers from renowned institutions in and outside India including Dr. Indrakshi Ray, Professor, Computer Science Department, Colorado State University, USA, Dr. Krishnasree Achuthan, Director, TBI, Amrita Viswavidyapeetam, Ms. Shweta Chawla, SC Cyber Solutions, Pune, Dr. Aninditha Banerjee, QuNu Labs, Bangalore, Dr. Ponnurangam Kumaraguru, IIIT-Delhi, Dr. Sudip Misra, IIT-Kharagpur, Mr. Adarsh S V, Sr. Security Analyst, UST Global, Trivandrum, Ms. Jancy Jose Managing Director, Strava Technologies and Mr. Manoj Kumar R from Tata Elxsi, Trivandrum who shared their experience in the field of security and sparked the passion in the audience to make a move towards new ventures aimed at women empowerment. The participants were also enlightened by the short talks and discussions by research scholars on various research works published in top venues which threw lights on recent developments in diverse areas including secure localization in wireless sensor networks, image forensics, LOADng IoT, video surveillance and distributed access control mechanisms.

The two day workshop concluded  with a panel discussion on the topic “ Why women expertise remain unutilized in cyber security domain?” moderated by Dr. Ciza Thomas, Professor, College of Engineering Trivandrum. The essence of the panel discussion motivated women candidates to tread the arduous paths to attain success in the area of cyber security. The workshop was marked by the immense participation of women delegates across the country and received a wide response from the participants. It proved to be an effective platform that offered awareness and insights into the latest technologies and advancements in cybersecurity research.