The future of cybersecurity in India: talent is universal, opportunity is not

Barracuda opens five Cybersecurity Centers of Excellence to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and practical experience

Key takeaways:

• Barracuda has opened five Cybersecurity Centers of Excellence (COEs) in engineering colleges across Karnataka, India.
• Skills gaps in graduates highlight the urgent need for exposure to real-world security challenges.
• Collective efforts from academia and industry can bridge the divide between theory and practice.

Many people ask me why Barracuda is investing in Cybersecurity Centers of Excellence in engineering colleges outside India’s traditional technology talent hubs such as Bengaluru (Bangalore) or Hyderabad. For me, the answer is deeply personal.

I grew up in a small town and like many students from India's smaller Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, I didn’t have access to cutting-edge technology, global companies or industry mentors. What changed my life wasn’t where I was from, but rather it was the opportunities that I had to go in search of and was fortunate enough to find. That realization has stayed with me throughout my career.

Twenty years ago, talented people had to go in search of knowledge and opportunities. Today, AI has democratized access to knowledge and made it widely available. What remains uneven is the distribution of opportunity.  

At Barracuda, we believe innovation should not be defined by geography, but by curiosity, determination and willingness to learn. We know exceptional cybersecurity talent can emerge from towns and villages just as much as from metro cities and elite institutions. Over the past few years, our engagement with colleges in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities has reinforced this belief. We were struck by the curiosity, hard work and determination of the students we met.

This led us to establish five Barracuda Cybersecurity Centers of Excellence across Karnataka, a state in Southern India. 

The COEs are in:

• Basaveshwar Engineering College (BEC), Bagalkot
• BLDEA’s Dr. P.G. Halakatti College of Engineering and Technology (BLDEACET), Vijayapura
• Siddaganga Institute of Technology (SIT), Tumkur
• Vidyavardhaka College of Engineering (VVCE), Mysore
• Alva’s Institute of Engineering and Technology (AIET), Moodbidri

The cybersecurity industry continues to face a significant shortage of skilled professionals. By establishing these centers, Barracuda is providing students with hands-on exposure to cybersecurity technologies while bridging the gap between opportunity and deserving talent.

We are not just building a hiring pipeline, we are nurturing talent and strengthening an ecosystem that will shape India’s next generation of cybersecurity innovators.

I believe that for a global cybersecurity vendor, leadership is not only measured by the products we build or the revenue we generate. It is also measured by the opportunities we create. One of the greatest privileges of growing Barracuda’s India organization is the opportunity to influence where the next generation of innovators comes from.

My hope is that five years from now, some of the engineers building AI-powered cybersecurity products at Barracuda or peer companies will look back and say their journey began in one of these Centers of Excellence. If that happens, these COEs will have achieved something far greater than producing employable graduates. They will have created confidence, ambition and opportunity in places where those opportunities were once scarce.