Vineet Kumar
Vineet Kumar is a lauded social entrepreneur and social activist of national and international acclaim. He has amassed 18 years of extensive work experience in the field of internet governance & CyberSecurity, and is the Founder and President of CyberPeace Foundation, Founder of Global Ethical Hackers Association (GEHA), CEO and Chairman of the National Anti-Hacking Group (NAG). He is an alumnus of Cranfield University, United Kingdom where he specialised in ‘Cyber Defence and Information Assurance’ and has studied ‘leadership’ at Cambridge University, UK.
A first generation entrepreneur, Vineet’s stints started at the age of 14 when way back in 2003 he conceptualised the National Anti- hacking Group (NAG) with a focus of bringing CyberPeace in cyber space.Following this, he served as the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) & Head of the State Government agency, Cyber Defense Research Centre (CDRC) of Jharkhand Police, Government of Jharkhand at the age of 22, fresh out of college. The beginning of Global Ethical Hackers Association (GEHA) and NAG were among the world’s first non-profit groups to fight against cyber crimes and had over 10,000 ethical hackers as part of the association. To increase the scope of the work he was doing to protect netizens from cyber crimes, Vineet went global in 2013 and founded the CyberPeace Foundation (CPF)- an award-winning apolitical civil society organisation and a think tank of cybersecurity and policy experts.
Vineet has been instrumental in shaping the CyberSecurity efforts against cybercrimes not only in India, but throughout the world. He is a member of various forums such as “Cyber Security Task Force of NASSCOM- DSCI” established by the Hon. Prime Minister of India in 2008, part of the Government of India’s delegation to foreign countries, and Member of the Advisory Council of Public Interest Registry(PIR), USA. Advisor and member of the Expert group to Government agencies, UN agencies, Non-Government agencies, public and private universities. Vineet continues to serve the nation through his prudent initiatives in the ever-evolving cyber threat landscape.
EARLY LIFE & EDUCATION
Vineet Kumar was born in Ranchi, the capital city of the state of Jharkhand, to Vidya Roy, a housewife, and VK Roy, a Central government official. Despite being born in a small town in India, where IT penetration was extremely low, Vineet was highly passionate about technology and started working in the field of CyberSecurity at a time when there were little to no job openings for CyberSecurity experts. By 14, the media had labelled him “Youngest IT Security Guru, CEO & Social Entrepreneur”, thereafter went on to become one of the world’s youngest Microsoft Certified Systems administrators. With the ever increasing cybercrimes, Vineet wanted to expand the impact of his work, which led him to founding two pioneering initiatives towards establishing a sustainable peaceful cyberspace – the Global Association of Ethical hackers (GEHA) and the National Anti-Hacking Group (NAG).
- Alumnus of Churchill College, University of Cambridge, UK where he pursued a leadership course as a member of Future Leaders Connect 2017
- Post Graduation degree in ‘Cyber Defence and Information Assurance’ from Defence Academy of UK (Ministry of Defence) and Cranfield University on a fully funded ‘Chevening Scholarship’
- Integrated course of Bachelors and Masters in IT Infrastructure (IT IMS) from Sikkim Manipal University of Technology, Gangtok.
- Higher Senior Secondary Education from Army Public School, affiliated to CBSE; Science Stream Alumnus of St. Thomas, affiliated to ICSE.
With the wave of CyberSecurity gaining huge momentum globally, Vineet founded Security Brigade in July of 2006, with a mission to expand the bandwidth of his work, not just to netizens but corporates and government organisations as well. Security Brigade was established with the objective to provide CyberSecurity services and was one of the fastest growing Indian IT security company with offices across India, Australia, Middle East, Pisa (Italy), UK & United States which he exited officially in 2012.
Awarded with the Chevening Scholarship for a postgraduate degree in ‘Cyber Defense and Information Assurance’ in 2014.
CAREER & ACHIEVEMENTS
Vineet is also a guest instructor and faculty at National Police Academy (Ministry of Home Affairs), Railway Staff College (Ministry of Railways), Jharkhand Judicial Academy (Government of Jharkhand), Indian Institute of Management, Ranchi (Ministry of HRD), Amity University, Lucknow, State Bank of India Learning Centre (SBLC) and Sardar Patel Institute of Public Administration (Govt of Gujarat).
Post his stint as the CTO of Jharkhand Police, Vineet received the prestigious fully funded ‘Chevening Scholarship’ to complete his Post Graduate degree in ‘Cyber Defence and Information Assurance’ from Defence Academy of the United Kingdom (Ministry of Defence) & Cranfield University. Additionally Vineet is also an alumnus of Cambridge University, UK where he did a ‘leadership course for Future Leaders’. Vineet has also been the Local Liaison Officer, Anti-Corruption & Security unit (ACSU) of ICC, India-England Series, 3rd One day international match held on January 19, 2013, and BCCI in an IPL match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers Bangalore held on May 12, 2013 & Kolkata Knight Riders(KKR) vs Pune Warriors(PWI) held on May 15, 2013.
Today, Vineet Kumar is the Founder & President of CyberPeace Foundation, one of the world’s first NGO in the CyberSecurity space. The fundamental pillars of CyberPeace Foundation was laid back in 2007, but officially launched amidst the world’s best cyber experts at ‘ISACA Security Conference’ hosted in Palm Jumeirah, Dubai in October 2013.
With 18 years of experience in the CyberSecurity domain, Vineet stands to be the pioneer of the concept of CyberPeace amongst nations in the proliferating era of cyber warfare, when cyber competency has become a competitive advantage for the nations. The apex bodies in the field of business, governance, social sectors, educational bodies, aviation and bodies affiliated to international organizations, United Nations Youth Assembly have all credited the contributions of Vineet and also ceremonially recognized & awarded his selfless efforts. He continues to be at the forefront to ensure knowledge sharing amongst multiple stakeholders of the society through various international and national platforms such as TEDx events, Trend Micro Executive Defense Summit, Internet Governance Forum, ISAFE Dubai, Ground Zero, BASIS and c0c0n, to name a few.
Since the age of fourteen, for his entrepreneurial achievements, Vineet has been the recipient of numerous media recognitions and International accolades and honors. With a strong urge to increase his scope of knowledge in CyberSecurity, he attended the integrated course of Bachelors and Masters in IT Infrastructure Management (IT IMS) from Sikkim Manipal University Of Technology, Gangtok. Due to his achievements in the field of CyberSecurity , he was appointed as the Chief Technical Advisor for Cyber Defence Research Centre (CDRC), Jharkhand Police, Government of Jharkhand while in college and was later offered a full-time as CTO after he graduated.
CDRC is India’s first government-led cyber defence research centre, and 8th in the world which is responsible for state-wide CyberSecurity. As the CTO, Vineet launched a number of key state-wide CyberSecurity initiatives like eKawach (Critical Infrastructure Protection), capacity building, state CyberSecurity policy, crisis management plan, cyber surveillance & social media intelligence, open source cyber forensics/ CyberSecurity lab, state police datacenter cyber security, Security of Jharkhand Government & Jharkhand Police websites and networks. Additionally, he also headed technology school of Jharkhand Intelligence Training & Technology School (JITTS), Jharkhand Police.
2003 – 2012 : Founder & CEO, National Anti-Hacking Group
2006 – 2012 : Founder & CEO, Security Brigade
2007 – 2011 : Advisor, Jharkhand Police
2012 – 2014 : Chief Technology Officer, Jharkhand Police
2014 – till date : Founder & President, Cyber Peace Foundation
2017 – till date : Advisor, Public Interest Registry, USA
• Member of the Expert Group on CyberSecurity, NCPCR (Ministry of Womenand Child), AICTE(Ministry of HRD) and NCERT (Ministry of HRD), Govt ofIndia.
• Advisor and Member of the Expert group to Government agencies, UN agencies, Non-Government agencies, public and private universities
• Certified Corporate Director and board member (Independent Director) of few companies & orgs.
Winner of Paragon 100 fellowship (China) on account of being a white hat hacker, selected by The Foundation For Youth Entrepreneurship