Catch Them Young

IIT Kanpur makes a smart choice

Nisarga Adhikary, a 19-year-old who became famous last month for finding problems in CBSE’s digital exam-marking system, has joined IIT Kanpur. But he isn’t joining as a student. He has been hired as an employee.

He will work as an engineer who helps find online security threats. IIT Kanpur’s decision is a smart one. Instead of focusing on Nisarga’s age or the fact that he has just finished Class 12, the institute looked at his skills. That shows the kind of quick thinking usually seen in startups. Nisarga also believes that a college degree is not the only way to become an engineer. So both he and IIT Kanpur seem to agree that talent matters more than certificates.

Some people may wonder if 19 is too young for such an important job. But there are many examples of teenagers doing impressive work in cybersecurity. One is David Dworken, who became well known in 2016 when he was only 18. While still in high school, he joined a Pentagon programme that paid people to find security flaws in government websites. He discovered several weaknesses.

Another example is Marcus Hutchins. In 2017, he found a way to stop the dangerous WannaCry ransomware attack, which spread to more than 100 countries and caused billions of dollars in damage. Marcus had made mistakes when he was younger and had even created harmful software. But later he used his skills to help protect people from cyberattacks.

These examples show that IIT Kanpur has good reasons to trust Nisarga. Indian institutions should look for talented young people more often. They could also run programmes like the Pentagon’s Bug Bounty scheme, where experts are rewarded for finding security problems before criminals do.

Such programmes can save money as well. In one case, a US Defence Department contractor was paid $5 million over three years and found only 10 security flaws. In contrast, bug hunters like David found more than 130 flaws in just a few days and were paid a total of only $75,000.

END OF ARTICLE