This 24-year-old has made school education almost irrelevant. He dropped out of school in eighth standard and immersed himself into technology – computers, laptops and later smart phones. Today Trishneet Arora from Ludhiana has made it to the Forbes ‘30 under 30’ Asia 2018 list.
Alongside his name appears that of Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu and actress Anushka Sharma.
BEGAN AS EIGHT-YEAR-OLD
Ask him, when did he begin? He hazily tries to remember: “I think I must have been 8-year-old boy when I got fascinated with computers.” I messed up my dad’s computer. I accompanied him to the shop and saw the entire fixing process. That was my initiation into technology and ever since I have only lived with computers, smart phones and a few extra wires which bring life into the system. And the rest is history full of hard work.”
But he says, one thing which was important in this journey was that he was always good in Maths. “I think numbers and figures came to me quite naturally. I remember phone numbers so easily.”
STARTED TAC SECURITY IN 2013
But the big leap he took was while he was still in Ludhiana. He started TAC Security in 2013. He was just 19 then. TAC Security today is a multi-million dollar Cyber Security company. What’s more Trishneet has with him the likes of ex-Vice President of IBM and ex-Vice President of Cognizant as board members and Lawrence Ang from Singapore, who has 27 years of experience in cyber security.
35 % EXPORT REVENUE COMES FROM SILICON VALLEY
At present, with a team of 45, many with salaries which can make mid-career professionals envious, he exports cyber security solutions across the world. “35 per cent of my export revenue comes from the Silicon Valley,” he tells. And Trishneet caters to more than 100 top-notch clients. His company performs vulnerability assessment and penetration testing for corporates, weakness identification in their cyber security. In 2017, Arora was listed among the 50 Most Influential Young Indians by GQ Magazine.
AUTHORED MANY BOOKS
Alternately, Trishneet also started authoring books on cyber security. He has already written a couple of them. But what is noteworthy is the fast lane in which he is travelling and with ease. From a sub-urb called Dugri in Ludhiana he now glides the globe. And to ensure that he isn’t far from the most connected airport of India to the world, he now lives in Juhu, Mumbai virtually out of the suitcase.
AIM NASDAQ
But ask him, what are his future plans, and the focus slightly shifts from technology to business or as many would like to called conversion of cyber security into business. I plan to get listed at Nasdaq by 2020 as first cyber security company from India.
From once providing cyber security solutions to Punjab Police, Gujarat Police, Reliance and other giants, he has quickly moved on. One of the youngest ‘ethical hackers’ in the country, Trishneet says hacking for him was always an art and scares us by saying, “There isn’t any doubt that it also means that a person with the best of skills can hack your bank account as well and get millions but, remember, next moment, he could also be behind bars.”
