Tech COS, VTU tie up to improve skills

Peerzada Abrar, Bangalore
The Economic Times (Bangalore edition)
While India produces a large number of engineering graduates every year, most transnationals find only 25% of them employable, says a Global Institute study. A recent study by PurpleLeap, an entry-level talent management firm paints an even grim picture — only 6% of the 10,000 students across 150 engineering colleges were found to be employable. To this end, firms like Intel, Bosch and Wipro are collaborating with technical universities like Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) to make these graduates improve their skill-sets.

“Robert Bosch received about a lakh job applications, of which 10,000 were called for an interview while only 1,000 of them were finally hired,” Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions (RBEI) MD Friedhelm Pickhard said. What RBEI, a leading provider of technology and services, has done is to sign a pact with VTU to set up a Bosch Technical Centre in their campus. “It is an effort to bring the industry and academia together. We are forming such partnerships not only with Bosch but with Wipro and Intel too. Similar initiatives are in pipeline with IBM and Australia’s Deakin University,” says Dr HP Kincha, vice-chancellor, VTU. “With Bosch, we will set up an R&D centre for automotive electronics. We want to create innovation centres,” he added.

The world’s largest chipmaker Intel will also set up a research centre in Mysore along with VTU, which will work on multi-core technologies. “A multi-core learning centre will be set up in 2010 in Mysore. Intel has already created one at MS Ramaiah Institute of Technology, Bangalore, last month”, said an Intel spokesperson.

Wipro, through its non-profit trust — Mission 10X, will be reaching out to 10,000 faculty members with innovative teaching methods across India to enhance the employability potential of graduating engineers, said Dr Selvan D, senior vice-president for talent transformation at Wipro.