Empower IT Campaign

Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Limited (ELCOT) is a Government of Tamil Nadu Undertaking vested with the responsibility of promoting Information Technology (IT) Industry in Tamil Nadu. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Government in Tamil Nadu have taken a Policy decision to promote IT Industry in Tier II Cities such as Tirunelveli, Madurai, Tiruchirappalli, Coimbatore, Salem and Hosur. ELCOT has been entrusted with the task of promoting the IT Parks. ELCOT has already promoted seven IT Parks in the Tier II Cities and two IT Parks in Chennai City. All the nine IT Parks have already been approved as IT Specific Special Economic Zones (SEZ) by the Government of India. The Government have also allocated lands in these IT Parks to leading National and International IT Companies.

It has been found that the number of students directly employable in the IT Industry after the students come out of College has been dwindling due to various factors. Similarly, the IT Industries have not realised the potential of the manpower available in certain parts of the Tier II Cities. In order to address these issues, ELCOT has commenced a Campaign titled "Empower IT". The Empower IT Campaign is intended to achieve the following objectives:-

To create the ground swell among the college students of the Tier II Cities / Regions to enable them to understand the potential employment opportunities in IT Companies so that they can equip themselves better.

  1. To create awareness and sense of competitiveness among the colleges and college students in the Tier II Cities / Regions.
  2. To organise student meet to enable the students and IT companies to come together and understand each others' strength, weaknesses and requirements.
  3. To enable the IT companies and potential IT investors to get to know the potential of each and every Tier II City / Region, thus enabling them to take an informed decision on locating their operations in the Tier II Cities / Regions of Tamil Nadu.

The Modalities of the empower IT Campaign are as Follows

  1. Conduct various competitions such as paper presentation, quiz competition, software coding, software designing and software debugging for the engineering students and arts and science students of each Tier II City / Region to bring out the best in them. The successful students / colleges would be offered attractive cash prizes and other incentives.
  2. Interact with leading IT companies in Tamil Nadu and get their key resource persons nominated on the panel to conduct this event.
  3. Nominate these IT industry representatives to chair various panels to judge the presentations and choose the best three award winners among each category of competition.
  4. Conduct a mass contact programme, inviting students and faculties of various engineering colleges and arts and science colleges for two days and hold various events / activities. These events and activities would be monitored by the representatives of the IT industry.
  5. Conduct the last day's event as an interactive session/ house whereby the students as well as the representatives of the IT industry will have a free interaction with each other which will enable them to understand each others' requirements bold and clear.

Theme Seminar and Panel Discussions

From the horse mouth: The IT leaders speak about how to make the college students employable by IT/ITES industry.

Debate: Does the south Tamil Nadu have the IT/ITES talent pool?

Do you have it?: Importance of soft skills and English language skills!

Who Can Participate in the Event?

Engineering College Students and Arts & Science College Students reading their Post Graduate Programme in Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Kanniyakumari and Virudhunagar districts can take part in the event. Though we suggest that students of 3rd and 4th year(UG) alone should attend, there is no bar on the 1st and 2nd year students attending the event. It is up to the College Management to field the best candidate for the competitive events. Each College is expected to bring at least 200 students for the event. One section of the students will directly take part in the contests and the remaining section of the students would take part in the seminar. The seminar will bring out rich guidance for the students to become potential employees of IT Companies and hence, ELCOT recommends larger participation of students to take part in the seminar on both the days.

IT Company Representatives to Judge the Contests

The speciality of the event is that the Chief Executive Officers and HR Managers of leading IT Companies in India formulate the competitive events and they also act as Jury. Hence, the IT Companies will have a first hand information about the quality of manpower available in the southern region of Tamil Nadu. Similarly, the students of this region could know about what the IT Companies require.

Extensive consultative process had been initiated to make this even a success. First such meeting was held with the IT Companies at Chennai on 15.11.2007. This was followed by a review meeting headed by the District Collector at Tirunelveli on 07.12.2007. The third meeting was conducted in Tirunelveli under the Chairmanship of District Collector, Tirunelveli on 28.12.2007. With various teams working for the conduct of the event, the event has been conceptualized to have the following modalities.

The Preparations

  1. Coverage: The event would cover the Engineering, Arts and Science Colleges in four Southern Districts of Tamil Nadu such as Tirunelveli, Thoothukudi, Kanniyakumari and Virudhunagar.
  2. District level events would be conducted by District Coordinator nominated for the purpose.
  3. ELCOT would issue Certificates to the Winners of the District Level competition.
  4. The first day event of the Empower IT campaign will be held at St. Xavier's College, Palayamkottai on the 18th January 2008. Immediately, after the inauguration, a seminar would be conducted. It would be addressed by Chief Executive Officers and HR Managers of top IT Companies in the Country.
  5. 23 IT Companies have confirmed their participation in the event.
  6. In order to attract the students to take part in the event and show their prowess in various faculties, ELCOT proposes 12 different types of competitions. These are group events and individual events.
  7. The following prizes are proposed for the Winners.
    (a) Individual Contest Winners – Laptop Computer (Dell or Lenovo)
    (b) Group event Winners – Rs. 15,000/- per Group
    (c) For the Runners, various other prizes are being distributed.
  8. Apart from the prizes, the participants of the winning group will get Merit Certificates.
  9. On the second day (19th January 2008 at Einstein College of Engineering, Tirunelveli), the students will have an opportunity to directly interact with the representatives of the IT Companies. It is expected that both the stakeholders will get the advantage of understanding each other through this interaction. The students are expected to gain knowledge about what the IT Companies need from the students who are potential employees of IT Companies and the IT Companies would understand the potential manpower available in this region.

ELCOT has already set up a 500 acre IT Specific Special Economic Zone in Tirunelveli. Leading BPO Companies in the Country have already applied for and obtained allocation of land in this IT Park. After conducting of the Empower IT Campaign at Tirunelveli, it is expected that more IT Companies would come forward and set up their units in this region, thus enhancing the employability of the students in this region.

 
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