HYDERABAD: Kaizen, a Japanese philosophy which emphasises on continuous improvement of working practices and personal efficiency, is a word you would associate with martial arts or meditation. Vijay Bhasker Pentareddy, however, believes one should face everything from a job interview to a project on hand to our life with this philosophy. Enthusiastic about sharing best practices with every student, Vijay, a resident of Marredpally, decided to take to social media. Today, the Facebook page Kaizen has over 23,000 members and what he started nearly nine years ago is yielding results.
“The Facebook group has helped more than 6,000 youth in getting jobs in corporates. Students have secured jobs in about 80 companies such as Wells Fargo, Broadridge, HSBC, Bank of America, Cognizant, Wipro and Accenture,” he states. The group is just one of the things that Vijay does as part of helping Telangana youth land the right job. So how does he go about helping them getting the job? “Through online career counselling through FB Group, oneon- one counselling, training and by imparting skill development classes.
“I am currently working on a web series on career and am creating video content, which would help youth/working professionals in their career planning, career tracks, career choices etc. It is going to be AI driven and it is a long-term project. Using technology to reach larger audience, says Viay who recently did a project for Telangana Finishing School concept. Elaborating on this project he says, “In 2014, Minister KT Rama Rao had a meeting with all technology HR heads in Hyderabad to take inputs on how youth from the State can get gainfully employed.
He announced that he found that lack of communication skills was making a large section of these graduates unemployable. I wrote an email to him stating that not just communication skills, we need skill development too to make them employable. Interestingly, he responded to my mail and he directed his team to introduce me to Telangana Academy (TASK) under the leadership of academician Sujiv Nair. I have explained the concept of Finishing School, which not only focuses on communication, but many other areas which needed to be touched upon.
That is how I came on board.” The Finishing School teaches Java, .NET, programming, aptitude, personality, facing an interview and other such modules necessary to learn to get a job. “This has helped the State create finishing schools in Warangal, Mahaboobnagar, Ranga Reddy etc. However, since it is difficult to build so many physical entities for lakhs of students, I feel that the government should support in creating an app through which we can enroll every student not just in the city or state, but the entire country, for as low as `499,” Vijay elaborates.
He also believes in the usage of AI to expand the operations. “While I continue my training, I have felt that training success I had with students can be shared to a larger audience. Initially I thought about having different centres, but that was capital intensive. So we have created a YouTube Channel and created content (in progress) I have broken up my training module into five minute videos targeting areas that students struggle with”.
A B.Tech from JNTU Kukatpally who has completed M.S. Computers from Univ. of Illinois, Vijay has worked in IT Strategy, management strategy, Solution Architecture, Sales etc. He has worked for 15 years in Accenture (Chicago, USA) and Wipro Technologies (Bangalore & Hyderabad). “I have worked mostly with Chief Executive Office (CXO) Level professionals in Fortune 500 organisations globally. However, my pet project is Warangal Finishing School Pilot in Kazipet for TASK which is worth replicating,” he says. —kalanidhi@newindianexpress. com @mkalanidhi