With the world software market expected to zoom to a $457-billion industry by 2013, there is a compelling need to foster a vibrant talent ecosystem, which the promising industry solely thrives on. Convincingly, for an IT exporting country like India too, the next billion dollar opportunity lies in the building of vibrant talent ecosystem, says Mark D? Souza, senior academic evangelist, Microsoft India, while talking to S Saroj Kumar of FE. For a country that already has proved its pedigree in generating $60 billion annual exports and employing close to 2.5 million people, toning up the talent is imperative especially the engineering discipline from which the IT industry employs close to 90% of its workforce, he says.
Before responding to talent gap, tell us about your student mission programme in India ?
In recognition of the universally acclaimed fact that India is a hotbed for software talent, we engage with students through Microsoft Student Partner(MSP) programme. Under the MSP programme, we act as a pooling force in bringing together the brightest of college kids in various parts of India who are all given the opportunity to attend technical sessions and briefings from Microsoft Subject Matter Experts (SME) on various current software trends and themes. MSP works in a ripple fashion, as the chosen hand-few students privileged to listen to lectures and workshops from Microsoft SMEs share their newly-acquired knowledge among their college peers.
This is to spread the tech advancement literacy and be industry ready. We started this programme some six years ago in India and this year we have around 700 MSP enrollments from the various engineering colleges and universities in the country.
Now, could you talk on talent gap which India is badly reeling under ?
I would take the country-wise MSP analogy data to corroborate the talent gap faced by India. The gross MSP enrollments of India is far higher for Microsoft against countries like Brazil and China. Brazil has about 350 members and China around 75. China is inching closer to the US and Canada which have less than 30 members. The lesser numbers for us denote how the robust college curriculum enable students in the countries to learn modern IT trends and themes from their regular graduate and post-graduate courses with no need for a programme like MSP. The numbers 350 and 700 of Brazil and India respectively show that MSP intervention is highly needed to bridge the yawning gaps in the IT/software curriculum administered by the colleges and universities in those countries.
Specific to India, could you tell us what type of changes in curriculum could address IT industry needs ?
As far as India is concerned, there is a glaring mismatch between rate of syllabus change and rate of newer IT technologies that are hitting the market globally. Universities here seldom change their IT syllabus that often put the Indian students at a disadvantage in grabbing global employment and business opportunities available in IT. For instance, cloud computing is one big area that is going to reset the global computing order, ironically, not many Indian technology universities have introduced electives in cloud to their computer science and IT students. There should be more electives on the latest technology trends like cloud computing and robotics available to a student preparing him for future roles in companies that are focussing in those areas of IT. There should be a hassle-free mechanism to phase out old syllabus and incorporate new syllabus content that is relevant to the current industry demand.Similar to China, we have to press the refresh button often on our IT syllabus so as not to break the galloping stride with the industry. I am glad that ministry of HRD is giving some serious thought on syllabus makeover that addresses the talent concerns of the industry.
Does MSP members have an advantage in securing job with Microsoft?
Yes in some aspects they do, but let me categorically state that as a software product company, Microsoft is not a fresher hiring company. As is the trend, product developing companies do not have the need to hire in droves. The core intention of running the MSP is to create a vibrant software partnership ecosystem for Microsoft. One?s expectation from a MSP programme should not just to learn the latest technologies and land a high-flying career. It should be a platform to further extend the research and innovation. Also, to turn into entrepreneurs by setting up their own start-ups.