IBM Academic Initiative to Help Indian Universities Prepare Students with Open IT Skills for a More Competitive Workforce - "In Demand Skills for an On Demand World" India, March 31, 2005 - To better prepare college students for the jobs of tomorrow, IBM has launched the academic initiative to collaborate with educators in teaching students the open standards skills necessary to compete and keep pace with changes in the unfolding information technology (IT) workplace. Through the academic initiative program, IBM will reach out to over 300 institutes in India, training over 75,000 students in IBM and Open standards based technologies by 2005.
The IBM Academic Initiative is an innovative program offering a wide range of technology education benefits from free to fee that can scale to meet the growing demand of skilled professionals in the country. IBM will work with universities -- that support open standards and seek to use open source and IBM technologies for teaching purposes -- both directly and virtually via the Web.
As part of the Academic Initiative, IBM will work with select universities that support open standards to achieve three key objectives:
* Training an IT workforce to fill the new kinds of jobs that are emerging at IBM and across the industry,
* Providing the right skills to the next generation of IT workers to ensure they are qualified for thejobs of tomorrow; and
* Ensuring that universities have the most current, relevant curricula that map to the kinds of jobs that are expected, so universities can be attractive for enrollment, funding and growth.
Universities piloting the IBM Academic Initiative in India include Department of Management Studies and Department of Computer Sciences, IIT Delhi; School of Information Technology, Guru Govind Singh Indrapratha University; Indian Institute of Sciences, Bangalore; Regional Engineering College, Durgapur; DAV Instiute of Engineering & Technology, Ludhiyana; Thiyagaraja College of Engineering, Tamil Nadu; Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore; Kongu Engineering College, Coimbatore and Visveswaraiah Technological University, Karnataka.
"As businesses innovate with new technologies for competitive advantage, companies and universities need to make a greater commitment to fill the skill pipeline to feed these new disciplines," said Shanker Annaswamy, Managing Director, IBM India. "There will be increased demand for high-value, high-paying jobs which require a multi-disciplinary skillset of computer services and line-of-business insight. Our goal is to help universities teach millions of students in-demand skills for an on demand world."
The IBM academic initiative will:
* Make available more than 40 IBM software technologies at no charge for integration into college curricula to help teach students how to master the fastest growing open technologies.
* Offer hardware products at special rates including the newest POWER5 servers, and blade servers featuring the latest Power Architecture. Access to larger Power5 servers will be made available through IBM's remote access programs including the recently announced IBM Virtual Loaner Program within the IBM Virtual Innovation Center.
* Take advantage of IBM's Workforce Development Solutions and Advanced Career Education. These are highly collaborative relationships with fee-based offerings that leverage the full spectrum of IBM's capabilities including ThinkPads, software, assessment and training services, course materials, helpdesk support, project management and internships.
* Assign a technical team to assess an institution's IT curricula and provide technical training and skills transfer for faculty and staff. There will be over 50 IBM-developed course materials on key software and hardware technologies, along with a wide array of information resources available via the academic initiative and developerWorks, including newsletters, community forums, education roadmaps, whitepapers and brochures, workshops and technical events.
It is estimated that approximately 250,000 IT students graduating every year, while the projected demand for trained IT professionals is estimated at over 400,000 per year. Nasscom estimates that India will have to educate atleast 2 million additional knowledge workers over the next 8 years, if India’s IT software and services sector is to achieve an annual revenue of US$ 70-80 billion in 2008.
The case for the IBM Academic Initiative is compelling. Linux continues to be the fastest growing operating system, according to IDC. A recent survey of 450 global CEOs by IBM Business Consulting Services revealed that 75 percent of the CEOs surveyed cited education and the lack of qualified candidates as the issues that will have the greatest impact on their business over the next three years.
For more information on the IBM Academic Initiative, visit http://www.ibm.com/university.
About IBM
IBM, the largest information technology company of the world, is a leader in services, creation and development of the most advanced information technology in the industry, including software, hardware and service solutions. The company is very focused on Social Responsibility issues and is always contributing through its technology, talents and resources to address social challenges in communities all around the world.
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