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IBM and Rajiv Gandhi Technical University (RGTU), Madhya Pradesh signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today to help students to enhance their skills in leading-edge software technologies and better position them in today’s fast changing IT world. IBM will provide RGTU with training for faculty members, student development initiatives, support for research work and major/minor projects of students. In the emerging era of knowledge-driven globalization and declining workforce it would require enhancement of necessary skills and talents through concerted efforts in higher education, technical and vocational training, and professional courses in order to match the expected demand of the industries and service sector organizations in India and abroad. Industry-academia partnership has emerged as an essential condition to foster academic and research excellence in the institutions and universities, to accelerate the growth of academic competance relevance research and to foster the environment of technology innovations. Finish School at RGPV is a new concept in which curriculum is developed for students to prepare them for requirements of industries. The Finish school aims to provide skills both technical and soft skills to people to facilitate their employability and play a part in the supply side issues (of talent) of the industry. The Finish School shall provide a pre-employment training programmes for graduating students from Engineering/ pharmacy / Polytechnic Colleges offering different specializations to cater to the needs of different industries. Finish School is a supplementary training school that attempts to make-up for deficiencies of students providing skills both in technical and soft skills to students to facilitate their employability and play a part in the supply side issues of the industry. The realisation of the full vision of a strong and developed India necessarily requires a strong intellectual and knowledge base supported and nurtured by a vibrant academic and research environment in its institutions which is well supported by the industry. This can happen only if a synergetic partnership between academia and industry is promoted as a part of education and research strategy. Further by this means, the university could become increasingly important for local economic development. At present, the fresh pass out students hired by industries are given training at the level of their induction either through product-oriented training programme or through in-house training programme organized by a few industries. In-house training is limited to a basic orientation, because vendor-based training is expensive and equipment specific. Finish School is a new concept in which curriculum is developed for students to prepare them for requirements of industries. The Finish school aims to provide skills both technical and soft skills to people to facilitate their employability and play a part in the supply side issues (of talent) of the industry.

The programme clearly brings out the huge gap between the requirement of the industry and availability of resources. This training programme is going to focus on key areas of Databases and Web Technology. This training programme aims to train the responsible faculties to produce students with the combined business and technology skills needed to enter today's workforce. This will help business and industry to get appropriately skilled manpower at reduced cost and save on time for re-training. On the other hand, it will enhance employment opportunities for the fresh graduates and bridge the gap that exists between the needs of the industry and the academic curricula. Through this programme the faculty will get an opportunity to acquire and reinforce industry specific knowledge, skills and competencies delivered by trained faculty and practicing managers, said Professor Piyush Trivedi, Vice Chancellor Rajiv Gandhi Proudyogiki Vishwavidyalaya, Bhopal. In this programme it is also been decided to enter into MoU with IBM for training of faculty and students on various emerging technologies in future, in turn to provide real time live projects support to students and further IBM will also be providing softwares on 100% discounts to the university and all the participating institutions. Selected faculty members form 155 engineering colleges in Madhya Pradesh (affiliated to RGTU) will undergo IBM’s Faculty Development program for specific IBM Software (DB2, Rational, WebSphere and others). Post this certification (provided free of cost), these faculty members will be deemed as “IBM Subject Matter Experts” in the respective area(s) and will be able to train the students in their engineering colleges on various IBM technologies.

“IBM has a long standing relationship with various universities across India. We are very pleased to partner with Rajiv Gandhi Technical University and look forward to working with the faculty on software learning and research projects under The Great Mind Challenge contest” , said Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager, Academic Initiative, Developer Works & Globalization, IBM Software India/South Asia. He further added, “IBM’s Academic Initiative assist engineering colleges develop consistent, high quality curricula for leading and emerging technologies. This effort exposes top student programmers across India to open standards-based technologies that are at the helm of innovations across industry, providing them with an opportunity to develop innovative solutions to be used by government agencies, industry bodies and academia.” Commenting on the proposed collaboration with IBM, Prof Piyush Trivedi, Rajiv Gandhi Technical University said, “We are proud to collaborate with the leading technology giant like IBM. The association will enable our faculty to remain at the top of next-gen technologies, synergize knowledge and liaise with top level technologists from IBM to address the needs of the 21st century workforce. This would definitely enable our students to be better prepared for the industry.” IBM’s Academic Initiative is a nationwide initiative and is a unique exercise to groom talent at the grassroots and enable tomorrow's workforce. IBM India successfully imparted training on open standards-based technologies to more than 110,000 students across 575 colleges in India during 2008 through the various AI programs.