Infosys Campus Connect Program Overview:-
Infosys Technologies Ltd. launched Campus Connect, an industry-academia partnership initiative, in May 2004, with 60 colleges. The initiative was aimed at deepening the industry-academia bonds and building a strong foundation for the future needs of both academia and the growing IT industry. The nationwide initiative, now global and in its sixth year, focuses on creating industry-ready IT professionals, by aligning engineering talent with the needs of the industry
Background
The Information Technology industry is growing at a healthy rate with businesses heavily dependent on IT applications for their operations. More and more enterprises are utilizing IT outsourcing as a strategic means to achieve business goals such as cost reduction, business innovation and competitive advantage. India has become a global hub for IT services export and has witnessed exponential growth of employment opportunities.
The IT services industry is, by nature, ‘people-centric’ and the demand for quality manpower is rising continuously. Quality manpower is essential to remain ahead of competition in the global market place. It is not uncommon that each of the major players is recruiting over 10,000 entry level engineers each year in the recent years. IT service majors have noticed certain skill gaps in fresh recruits from engineering colleges. The need for industry academia partnership has been strongly felt and this is required to enhance the readiness of engineering graduate workforce and to make engineering students industry ready. Infosys, through the Campus Connect program, shares with academia its mature technology training methods, courseware, student project samples and other such learning resources that have been developed, practiced and perfected.
The Campus Connect program has several program components weaved together to create synergy for effective, fast-paced learning; namely,
• Campus Connect Conclaves,
• Campus Connect Road Shows,
• Faculty Enablement Programs (FEP),
• Industrial visits through Spark,
• Foundation Programs Roll Out,
• Soft Skills Development Program
• Technology Seminars / Webinars, etc.
Benefits of the programme:-
Students
The main benefit to the student is enhancing employability and increasing the industry readiness for the IT industry. Outstanding performance in the Infosys screening examination will also make such students eligible for early association with real-life projects, if applicable, and other special opportunities..
Faculty
The College will pass on the benefits received from Infosys to the involved persons including faculty as per the college norms. The faculty involved will be provided with industry oriented artifacts for the respective courseware that they would be offering. This includes case-studies, prototype projects and similar teaching aids. In addition to this, faculty may be sponsored for sabbaticals at Infosys, for duration of two-three months in one of the Infosys’ centres in mutually agreed areas. Faculty could also benefit through sponsorships for research papers.
College
First and foremost, the college has been able to enhance the ‘employability’ of the students. Next, the students will have better exposure to industry requirements and practices. The college management is able to attract better students and faculty to the college because of its association with industry.
