VIJAYAWADA: “Various international companies in Britain are interested in funding young entrepreneurs in this region who come up with innovative ideas and these companies are also interested in setting up joint ventures here with such young entrepreneurs,” British Deputy High Commissioner Bharat Joshi has said.
Addressing the gathering at the inauguration of a programme organised by NGO Industry-Institute Interface at the PB Siddhartha College of Arts and Science, here on Saturday, he said that the present-day students, especially the engineering graduates, lacked both technical and communication skills and added that communication skills were, in fact, more important for prospective entrepreneurs than the technical skills.
On the occasion, he unveiled the logo and launched the website of the Industry-Institute Interface, whose aim was to provide a platform for the students and companies to directly interact with each other.
As many as seven Chennai-based corporate companies have decided to spend money to provide training to the engineering graduates in the state once every month.
“Every year, both Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh together are producing 40 per cent of the total number of the country’s engineering graduates. With the drastic changes in technology, the IT industry will recruit nearly 3,00,000 young employees having the required technical and communication skills from this year. Among them 60 per cent will be freshers as they are prone to get more innovative ideas than others”, NASSCOM Regional Director K Purushothaman said.
Meanwhile, students feel that programmes like the one conducted by the Industry-Institute Interface will motivate them to acquire the required technical skills and soft skills, which are essential to get jobs in the IT industry. “These programmes will give us confidence and a chance to prove ourselves. Unlike in the past, now the colleges are also focusing on imparting the required skills to the students by conducting skill development sessions twice or thrice a week,” said M Janardhan, a third-year EEE student of MIC institute of Engineering and Technology. Petrofac-Chennai Vice-President KRSR Krishna and Chipedge-Bangalore CEO Venkat Sunkara were among those who attended the programme.