Harnessing the Power of the Youth

Yokohama, Japan. The Microsoft Imagine Cup which pitched some of the best

young minds from countries all over the world got off to a great start with some

truly high quality ideas emerging in the Software Design competition. As a Jury

member interacting with colleagues from industry and academia, I was truly

amazed to see the intellect and the articulation that characterized the

presentations of every team-from China to Turkey and Saudi Arabia to Austria,

as hundreds of young students pitched their wits in an intellectual battle par

excellence.

Pune, India. The IETE Broadband Conference sees an interesting panel

discussion where participants from the government, academia and both the

provider and user industries talked about the need to take telecommunications to

the rural heartland of India. Chairing the discussion, it struck me that this

could well be the best way to have a totally inclusive industry, and ensure that

the costs of production were lowered and more youngsters are able to participate

in the IT and ITES boom.

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. The Asia HRD Forum where over five hundred

participants from twenty countries meet to discuss issues of employment and

motivation in traditional and emerging industries across the Asia Pacific. At

the Awards ceremony where three of us were honoured for our work with young

people, it was interesting to understand the common desire of all Asian HR

Chiefs-to create opportunities for their countrymen to shine on global

platforms and lead their countries to greater prosperity.

The common thread that emerged was the need to create more and more

opportunities for young people-and there is no industry which can do this

better than our own Software and BPO sector! This industry has shown signs in

the last year or so of being willing to spread its wings, the only limiting

factor is the availability of talent to fill the IT and BPO centers that are now

dotting the landscape.

For this to happen, organizations need to get off the beaten path of

recruiting experienced English savvy engineers when a much lesser qualified

individual would do. And, they should work with fine arts academic institutions

to get the best science, arts and commerce graduates to participate in the new

revolution. A partnership we are particularly proud of is the Zensar-Ferguson

College collaboration that is on the anvil, blessed by Nasscom and the UGC,

which will see a technology development center come up within the institute

campus that will link participating students to the company through technology

and use a component based development framework to architect new products and

solutions. Extend the logic to a center in Guwahati or even in China or

Venezuela and the opportunities to build a true Global development model with

more reliance on remote development and less on brick and mortar campuses will

become apparent.

The flattening of geographical barriers will also pave the way for extensive

use of e-learning and virtual classrooms to make affordable and uniform quality

education available to all and level the playing field for students and job

seekers in the less elitist and towns of India. Will that create the India of

our dreams-the next few years will tell!

The author is Deputy Chairman & MD of Zensar Technologies and Chairman

of the NASSCOM Innovation Initiative ganesh@dqindia.com