Google search: Indian whiz kids

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New Delhi, Feb 10: Google Inc, the world’s most-used web search engine, is offering prize money of $36,550 in a competition for software coders. The purpose behind the contest is to find staff for its research and development centre in Bangalore.

“Google is looking for engineers with the programming skill to rewrite the world’s information infrastructure,” the Mountain View, California-based company said on its website. “The Google India Code Jam 2005 is one way we hope to find them.” The winner will get Rs 3 lakh ($6,852).

Google and other Indian and overseas software companies such as Microsoft and Oracle are devising ways to attract software writers as competition for workers spurs wage gains in India.

India’s software companies gave the country’s biggest pay increases last year, raising salaries by an average 15%, according to a survey by Hewitt Associates Inc.

The competition, which will test the candidates’ skills in writing software and testing software codes, will be open to residents of India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand and The Maldives.

India’s colleges and universities will graduate as many as 184,347 engineers in the year to March 31, according to India’s National Association of Software and Service Companies. Still, demand for talented and experienced software programmers is outstripping supply.

The top 50 finishers of India Code Jam 2005 will travel to Bangalore for the final round and will receive prize money and possible offers to join Google’s research centre in Bangalore. Google also has an engineering centre in Hyderabad.