THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For years, Kerala’s IT story has largely been about producing engineers for a global industry. The next chapter could be about giving those engineers a bigger role in deciding what that industry builds.
Seeking to prepare the engineers for such a shift, a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) Academy will be launched at Thiruvananthapuram Technopark on Monday. The academy aims to train engineers to work directly with customers, understand their business problems and use AI to find solutions.
The initiative by Experion Technologies comes as the traditional model of IT work begins to change. MD, CEO and co-founder of Experion Technologies Binu Jacob said our industry model is such that most engineers work from India while a smaller team deals directly with customers. However, now it is shifting towards one in which a larger share of engineers interact with customers, he said.
“Technical skills alone may no longer be enough for engineers. They will need to understand the industries they work for, communicate with customers, make product decisions, understand architecture and security, and know how to use AI effectively,” Jacob told TNIE.
The FDE Academy is designed around this changing requirement. Its significance lies in the possibility of enabling more engineers in the state to take on higher-value, customer-facing roles in global technology projects.
The academy is being launched alongside a 58,000-sq-ft AI Centre of Excellence (CoE), which will have the capacity to equip over 700 engineers for AI-led product engineering. Experion has invested about USD 1.5 million in the facility, with further investment planned in AI tools, training and people.
The CoE will also support ARC, the company’s new AI-native product engineering model. In simple terms, ARC aims to use AI not merely to write code faster, but to help engineers understand problems and improve products throughout their life cycle.
“This is an opportunity for Kerala to move up the global technology value chain — from executing requirements to shaping products, creating intellectual property and solving complex problems for the world,” said Alex P James, professor of AI Hardware, School of Electronic Systems & Automation, Digital University Kerala.
State’s next AI leap
New academy to build future-ready IT talent
Engineers to work directly with global customers
AI to transform how products are built
Focus shifts from execution to product ownership
Kerala eyes higher-value roles in global tech
