IT firms open knowledge window to bridge skill gap

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Mumbai, Aug 15: The IT industry, which is struggling against an appreciating rupee, high rate of attrition and lack of employable talent, is all set to bridge the demand-supply gap and make fresh graduates ready for the industry. IT companies are, in fact, nurturing their association with educational institutions—both management and technical—to ensure a steady inflow of technically qualified software programmers.

Says Tom Joseph, director-worldwide education programs, Asia Pacific, Autodesk Inc, “There is an increased focus in innovation and research for the development of superior products that can compete in an open global economy. A constant pressure that the industry faces is the lack of skilled manpower to drive the development of superior products.”

Autodesk works with over 50,000 educational institutions globally. In India, the company has launched a centre of excellence in design at four major institutes—IIT (Madras), National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad), Sir JJ College of Architecture (Mumbai) and School of Planning and Architecture (New Delhi).

Similarly, Accenture has a strong focus on campus corridor programmes. The company, besides strengthening its recruitment efforts from select colleges, has a defined 'engagement plan' to support areas such as curriculum development, faculty training/workshops, student seminars, visit to facilities and sponsorships.

Global computer technology major IBM has also launched 'The Great Mind Challenge 2007', a problem-solving contest for college students in which the programmers will exhibit their skills using the corporation’s open standards-based tools. There is a possibility that the solutions developed by the students in the competitions may be used by government agencies, industry bodies and the academia, the company informed.

Says Anil Menon, V-P (marketing and SWG ecosystem), IBM, “The education system in India does not change as fast as technology does. The IBM initiative will give students the practical industry scenario, will help them to be innovative, address the real world challenge and develop team spirit among them.”

IBM has imparted training on open standards-based technologies to more than 80,000 students across 745 colleges in India during 2006.

With an aim to create a pool of trained manpower that can address the growing need of networking professionals, Cisco has launched the Cisco Networking Academy Program (NetAcad) in India.