After North East NASSCOM eyes Kashmir after North East

Bangalore, Sep 6 (UNI) The National Association of Software Services Companies (NASSCOM) today indicated that it will soon invite the youth of Kashmir to join the Information Technology success story of the country by opening up opportunities.

NASSCOM President Kiran Karnik told newsmen here that NASSCOM's initiative in the North East would get a new fillip as well in the next few months, when over 20,000 youths in the region get opportunities to get trained and assessed for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) jobs. ''They are intelligent and know the language (English) well, but they do not have necessary skills for the ITeS companies and efforts will now be to open up the window of opportunity,'' he said adding that 20,000 youth would be selected for training and assessment under the National Assessment scheme of NASSCOM.

Mr Karnik who unveiled an online IT training module rRapid Suite of Liqwid Krystal India Limited, said that the next state to be targeted by NASSCOM would be Kashmir. ''We made some attempt (in Kashmir last year), but we did not succeed,'' he said adding that creation of necessary talent poll in the trouble torn region could enable companies pitch for units there.

Reiterating the danger of country facing a shortage of half a million IT professionals by the year 2010, he said this would mean that the country would lose US Dollar 10 billion worth of IT Business. ''It's not that the country did not have enough youth, but they lack the right skills,'' he said adding that the efforts currently on to tone up the skills of fresh graduates and engineers.

But these could only have a trickle effect and the need of the hour was a scheme that could cover a wider section of the employable youth, he added.

In this regard he lauded the efforts of Liqwid Krystal in bringing out the online learning platform that could reach the cross section of people.

Liqwid Krystal CEO Anand Adkoli said that the online learning platform targetted at freshers and those languishing in the ''benches'' of IT Companies offered a learning platform for youth and create a pool of certified employees for IT and ITeS industry to absorb. With the courseware costing between Rs.1500 to Rs.20,000 the youth could be prepared for IT Jobs in about 150 hrs of training, he said adding that they could, when they feel comfortable, take up examination for certification of various software courses.

Certification would be delivered in association with Prometric, a leading provider of comprehensive testing and assessment services and having a network of 300 testing centres across 71 towns and cities.

UNI