Advisory Roles: Where We Sit on the Other Side of the Table

Alongside consulting, training and research, The CyberDiplomat contributes time to institutions building their own capability in technology, innovation and security. These advisory roles are not client engagements — they are seats at a table where decisions about direction are made.

Advisor, CMRIT Innovation Council

Sanjana Rathi serves as an Advisor to the Innovation Council of CMR Institute of Technology (CMRIT), Bengaluru. The council guides the institute’s innovation agenda, including its new incubation centre: how student ventures are selected and mentored, what infrastructure they need, and how industry partners can contribute something more useful than a logo on a banner.

The work sits naturally beside our Centre of Excellence in Cybersecurity at the same institute. Read the full story of that partnership in our CMRIT post.

Advisory work is where you influence what gets built next, rather than assessing what has already been built.

Why we take these roles

• Curriculum and capability: the skills gap in cybersecurity is closed in classrooms and labs years before it shows up in a hiring plan.
• Founders need security early: start-ups that consider privacy, secure design and compliance at the incubation stage avoid expensive retrofits later.
• It keeps our practice honest: sitting with faculty and student founders is a fast way to learn what the next generation actually builds and worries about.

Guidance in both directions

Our own direction is shaped the same way. The CyberDiplomat is guided by a panel of strategic advisors drawn from law enforcement, diplomacy, academia, mental health and technology across India, Israel, Nigeria, Cameroon and the United States — a reminder that the problems we work on rarely belong to a single discipline or a single country.

If your institution is building a cybersecurity centre, an incubation programme or a curriculum and would like an advisor at the table, talk to us.

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