Task force mooted to tap latent talent in N-E

NICT meet mulls integration of government, industry & academia for sustainable growth in region

A Moonwind member performs at NICT 2009 in Guwahati on Thursday. Picture by Eastern Projections Guwahati, Aug. 29 : Needed urgently, a task force involving government, industry and academic institutions to help build the next generation knowledge-based Northeast. This was the message sent out to the planners by IT professionals who brainstormed on the concluding day of NICT 2009 at Vishwaratna Hotel here today. Pranab Kumar Bose, vice-president, Educomp Solutions Limited, at a session on Industry-Academia Collaborations: Building the Next Generation Knowledge-based Northeast, said a task force, involving government, industry and academic institutions, was needed in the Northeast. “With lack of infrastructure, low industry penetration and limited talent creation opportunities, the need of the hour is to set up a task force which will help in identifying the gaps and find out solutions for harnessing the vast pool of manpower,” Bose said. He said a “need analysis should be made by the industry to articulate the detailed talent requirement”. Underlining the need to develop collaboration between industry and academia, Bose said academic institutions need to restructure themselves to meet the needs of the industry. “There is a need to upgrade the curriculum,” Bose said, adding that introduction of IT curriculum should be made compulsory in schools and colleges. He said there should be an IIM in each state and private sector involvement was a must for development of education sector. The managing director of Ontrack Systems Limited, B. Hari, said the problem with the education sector in the country was that it was based on conventions and there was not much scope to experiment. “Students do not know what they are doing and work on peer pressure. Job descriptions are changing fast and it is very hard to meet the expectations of the employers,” he said. Sandhya Chintala, director— Education Initiatives, NASSCOM, said with the bulk of current workforce in the country being untrained and unqualified, there was a need to retrospect, restructure and realign to come up with viable solutions. About current talent availability levels, Chintala said the country would be facing a shortage of over two million by 2020. “The main growth areas are in the public sector, media, healthcare and in utilities,” she said. Rajesh Goyal of Cognizant said both the industry and academia need to appreciate and understand each other’s concerns for a better collaboration. “Industry would like the academic institutions to focus on all-round skills of the students, make them open and flexible. The academic institutions should ask the industry to invest in money and time,” he added. At another session on Sustainable Growth Through Innovations, Devesh R. Agarwal, managing director of Infomart (India) Pvt. Ltd, urged entrepreneurs to focus on growth through innovative methods.