Pune Special: Training Grounds

However, like all other hubs the city too is on the verge of facing a
quality manpower crunch. While universities and engineering colleges might not
be able to provide the entire supply, several initiatives in interesting domains
have cropped up in the city. And though they are currently mainly addressing
Pune or Maharashtra, in general, these soon plan to expand nationally. More
importantly, these range across different domains and may thus be able to help
in the manpower crunch in their own ways. Dataquest takes a peek...

Disseminating IT Knowledge

Private initiatives in IT training have been mostly restricted to high-end
technologies, but Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation (MKCL) has been a notable
exception. MKCL, under its IT Literacy and Functionality Program, offers a wide
variety of short term courses in IT for dissemination of actionable knowledge in
IT tools and methodologies among the young aspirants, to boost their
employability. MKCL MD, Vivek Sawant claims the company's unfailing and
undeterred quest for low cost and high quality IT education and IT enabled
education to the masses has earned wide acclaim and credibility nationally and
internationally.

Sawant has numbers to justify his claim: in the last four years, MKCL has
successfully administered IT literacy training to 20,83,000 Standard 10th
students through 3,500 Authorized Training Centers spread across the state, many
in remote tribal and hilly areas. Having launched a state-wide IT Literacy drive
in the form of Maharashtra State Certificate in Information Technology Program
(MS-CIT), MKCL offers self-paced multimedia eLearning content with voice over in
English as well as Marathi rendered through the Learning Management System. A
state-of-the-art academic delivery mechanism, using distributed classroom with
voice and data leads to the supervised online examinations and instant
e-Certification.

Sawant further claims that this has emerged as the single largest network of
IT Training Centers in India. This network is established on the basis of the
Public Private Partnership (PPP) strategy and through the involvement of
hundreds of small and local educational enterprises and entrepreneurs. The PPP
initiative follows a 70:30 revenue sharing model between the franchisee owners
and the parent company. Accolades have not been late in coming for this quite
unique initiative: MKCL received the World Technology Network Award in San
Francisco in 2004 as well as the Maharashtra Government IT Award subsequently.

In addition to the IT literacy program, MKCL also offers Finishing School
programs on Java and .NET technologies though its Diploma in Software
Technologies citations.

Sowing Knowledge Seeds

Enough water has flown under the bridge since the seeding of Seed Infotech
way back in 1994 by two IIT post-graduates, then working with DRDO, with the
express vision of bridging the gap between IT industry requirements and the
university curriculum. Today Seed has germinated into one of the premier niche
IT training institutes that has spread its branches beyond Pune into other
locations like Mumbai, Nashik, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar and now Bangalore. Not
only does it have 17 centers across these locations, it has also expanded beyond
training into areas like staffing, outsourced software testing and even software
development. CEO & MD, Narendra Barhate expects to come up with 50 centers
by 2007-08, looking beyond Maharashtra too.

Seed Infotech boasts of an illustrious list of corporate clients like
Cognizant, Infosys, KPIT Cummins and Tech Mahindra whom it has provided training
on technologies like .NET, Java, Oracle, SQL Server, Project Management and
software testing. The Mumbai center was formed under an MoU with All India
Institute of Local Self Government (AIILSG) to provide training and research on
urban development and local government. “We also pioneered operations in
Japanese language training and deployment, and have trained and placed over 200
professionals in Japan through i-POC in companies like NTT Docomo and
Fujitsu,” adds Barhate. This was done through a tie-up with Vertex Software
leading to the genesis of Kanzen-Seed's Japanese division.

'Today Seed has germinated into one of the premier niche IT training institutes that has spread its branches beyond Pune into other locations like Mumbai, Nashik, Aurangabad, Ahmednagar and now Bangalore' -Narendra Barhate, CEO & MD, expects to come up with 50 centers by 2007-08, looking beyond Maharashtra.

Major accolades that had come Seed's way include the “Best Training
Service Provider on .NET” award by Microsoft in 2003 as well as the “Star
BOX OFFICE REGIONAL HIT Award” during the IBM Business Partner Summit at
Paris. The company also bagged an order from IL&FS Software and Education
Services to train their professionals on various emerging technologies,
including .Net technology.

Open workshops and corporate training programs are being conducted by Seed
Infotech for IL&FS professionals located at various branches in Mumbai,
Delhi and Bangalore. This apart, Seed Infotech also deploys (provide) qualified
manpower to IL&FS, according to their needs. As part of a marketing
alliance, Schoolnet products of IL&FS are also distributed and marketed by
Seed Infotech in Pune.

Trainers From The Chosen Land

Isreal is known to house a number of technology powerhouses and many of them
have already ventured into India in the last few years. However, for the first
time, IT training too came into the Indo-Israel radar through the arrival of the
training major Sela Group. Though Isreal-based Sela Group has ventured into
India two years back by setting up its HQ in Pune, nothing much has happened
till now. Director Ben Boudbeka offers an explanation: “ We have been testing
the waters here and only now are prepared to make our presence felt. There was
no point in rushing things, especially since we have identified India along with
US and Singapore, as our key areas of operation outside of Israel.”

Sela offers training programs in five major technology domains, viz Java,
.NAT, C++, Testing and Operating Systems. The key focus is also on incorporating
live projects within the training programs and not to have more than 20 people
in a particular class. Corporate recognition is already coming as Sela has
bagged clients like BMC Software, Persistent and AMDOCS for their corporate
training programs.

Though currently the company only has one center in Koregaon Park in Pune,
Boudbeka informs that they are exploring options to set up centers at least in
five major cities, with Hyderabad and Bangalore likely to come up in the next
few months. The company is also currently analyzing the university curricula in
India as well as the IT industry requirements, so that it can provide a
successful bridge between the two in future.

Sela incidentally has a 16-year track record of success in IT training, and
is recognized as Israel's leader in the training of high quality IT personnel
for the thriving and demanding Israeli IT community. Sela group's clients in
Israel include The Israeli Defense Ministry, Raphael, Elisra, Avirnaoutic
Industry, Amdocs, BMC, Comverse, TI, The Israeli Electricity company, General
Health Services Company, LEUMI Bank, Pelephone, EDS, NDS, ECI Telecom and
others.

'For the first time IT training came into the Indo-Israel radar through the arrival of the training major Sela group. The Israel-based Sela Group has ventured into India two years back by setting up its HQ in Pune' "We have identified India along with US and Singapore, as our key areas of operation outside of Israel." -Ben Boudbeka, director, Sela Group

Mastering Through International Collaboration

Founded by leading personalities in Indian IT and corporate India, I2IT has
already carved out a name for itself in the training arena. The academy has
already succeeded in providing a dash of international flavor, thanks to the
various academic collaborations it entered into with leading universities in
several parts of the world including Mae Fah Luang University, Thailand;
Russian-Indian Centre For Computing Research, Moscow; University of South
Florida, USA and Dominican University, Chicago amongst many others.

Recent feathers in I2IT's cap include the collaboration it entered with
Italy's International Center for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) for conducting
training workshops for professionals/students from developing countries. Under
this program, I2IT and ICTP are setting up training workshops in China, Sri
Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives, Bangladesh, Pakistan and other developing countries
in the area of Wireless Technologies, Networking and Telecom. I2IT with
assistance from ICTP organizes special educational programs for students from
developing countries, including graduate studies.
I2IT has become the focal point for contacts to Indian industries for
collaborative projects with ICTP.

I2IT has several collaborative programs with software vendors too. It has an
academic partnership with Tibco wherein the latter provides its business
integration software to train the students. Engineers from the Pune development
center of Tibco provides practical hands-on training for the faculty of I2IT and
it offers its products, Tibco business works, and Tibco adapter for files, Tibco
adapter for active database and Tibco adapters for SAP.
I2IT also has an alliance with CA whereby it offers CA software courses
as part of its MS and MBA programs. The CA course would prepare the budding
engineers and IT management students to prepare themselves for real world
challenge by the time they graduate.

Training The Testers

With the booming third party software testing business creating career
opportunities for IT professionals, the need for quality and trained manpower
has become a critical issue in the industry. Software testing has been closely
associated with development until a few years ago. But now, software testing as
a career is evolving rapidly and the profile of a successful tester is
remarkably different from that of a successful developer. As testing gains more
prominence, a generic career road map for software testing is likely to be
established in the years to come. The software-testing arena in India as a whole
is estimated to require, in the range of 16,000-18,000 hardcore professionals in
the next one year. The Pune-based SQTL has come a long way in addressing this
growing need. The company is focused on training, recruitment assistance and
consulting in software quality, testing, performance, availability, IT
infrastructure and service management.

Formed in June 2003 by technocrats with more than three decades of IT
experience between them, the education division of SQTL supplies highly skilled
resources to software companies. Most of its courses are certified by national
and international quality boards, thanks to its partnerships with CSI, ISTQB,
Red Hat, Novell, SUSE, and other global majors. The SQTL division of Vyom Labs
is the first Indian company to be accredited for ISTQB (International Software
Testing Qualifications Board) training. SQTL has an India wide tie up with the
Computer Society of India (CSI) for promoting software quality testing
standards, education and certification. CSI, in technical collaboration with
SQTL conducts a Certified Software Quality Testing Analyst (SQTA) exam.

Preparing Crime-busters

As the wider spread of Internet and mobile communication opened up new
vistas of crime, new opportunities have also come up in areas such as cyber law,
cyber crime investigation and cyber forensics. Cyber Crime Police Stations in
the country have come up in various places like Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.
No surprise therefore that training in cyberlaws have too become mainstream:
after all it's a simple question of laissez faire. Thanks to Pune's Asian
School of CyberLaws, this is today more than a reality.

Asian School of Cyber Laws conducts a number of courses available both in the
classroom and correspondence mode. Courses include Diploma in cyber law,
Advanced diploma in cyber law, Certified Cyber Crime Investigator (Level 1 and
2), Certified Cyber Forensics Professional and Certified Trainer in Cyber Crime
Investigation. Diploma in Cyber Law is a six-month course jointly conducted by
Government Law College, Mumbai and Asian School of Cyber Laws. The course
provides an understanding of cyber laws in the Indian context and also touches
upon cyber crime investigation. With cybercrimes now assuming a global nature,
Advanced Diploma in Cyber Laws provides an in-depth knowledge of cyber laws from
the global perspective. Relevant technological and international issues are also
dealt with in great detail.

The School of CyberLaws gained special recognition for its role in exposing
the secret behind mobile spoofing when it successfully tested SMS spoofing. The
countries that participated in the experiment included USA, Malaysia and India
wherein the senior police officials and IT professionals were informed about the
experiment, which was being carried out.

Team DQ

maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in