Pune college, signs pact with Neilsoft

PUNE: There has been a lot of talk of industry academia collaboration to increase the employability of fresh graduates. Turning talk into action, the College of Engineering Pune (CoEP) and Neilsoft, a Pune-based engineering services and solutions provider, have signed a memorandum of understanding(MoU) for a ‘headstart programme for engineering schools’.

COEP is the first engineering school to become part of ‘Three Engineering Schools’ pilot programme which Nasscom intends to roll out nationally under its workforce development initiative.

The headstart programme focusses on giving a career headstart for fresh graduates. Ketan Bakshi, managing director, Neilsoft, said, “The programme will ensure that freshers will have a fair idea of how the industry works.

The key barrier to India emerging as a global hub for Engineering Services is to have a well trained talent pool ‘ready to serve’ international engineering clients. In addition to the learnings received by students in engineering schools currently, they will also need to be trained in teamwork, communications, cultural diversity, project management, and specific domain areas.”

Training under the programme will begin from second year of the four-year engineering degree course with each student receiving at least 600 hours of training.

Professor Anil Sahasrabudhe, director, COEP added, “The ‘Headstart Programme’ will expose the students to business and commercial imperatives and also provide exposure to work methodology and quality processes of the industry.”

Nasscom officials said the industry body is targetting engineering colleges in tier II and tier III cities under this programme.