Infosys organizes US hackathon to attract global talent

BENGALURU: Indian IT has often been accused of hiring low level, low-cost programmers, pejoratively referred to as "cyber coolies". But Infosys's new CEO Vishal Sikka looks now to be trying to win the best of global programming brains.

The $8.2-billion IT company organized its first big hackathon in the US in Princeton University earlier this month. Called HackPrinceton, it saw the participation of more than 600 students. Princeton is a private Ivy League research university in New Jersey.

Infosys was the main sponsor of the three-day event that also had other sponsors, including Apple, Microsoft and Autodesk. This is a big shift in the Bengaluru-based IT company's hiring model that till recently was focused on direct campus recruitment, and reflects the desire to offer higher value-added software solutions.

Hackathons involve software programmers competing to come up with some best-of-breed ideas, and so provide good insights into their capabilities. It allows firms to assess a range of attributes, including performing under time constraints and thinking out of the box.

"We are in the process of engaging with a vast community of undergraduate and Masters students in the US as part of our hiring initiative announced earlier this month," Infosys said. The company had said it plans to hire 2,100 people, including 600 graduates, in the US in the next 12 months.