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Could you elaborate on the EMC Academy Program (EAP)?
EAP presents a new opportunity for students in storage, which is one of the
fastest growing segments in the IT industry. Increasingly, Indian organizations
want to build an intelligent information infrastructure. They need access to a
large pool of skilled information management and storage professionals and the
EAP is targeted at bridging this divide.
What is the rationale behind launching EAP?
Information storage and management is the fastest growing segment within the
IT industry. The industry is growing at a rate of 17%. Therefore, there is
greater need to create an intelligent information infrastructure, which is
independent of a company's compute and network infrastructure. To do this, we
need to have professionals who have the skill-sets, know how to design such
architectures, deploy them and support and sustain them. When we look at
academia, no one offers courses on storage. Nasscom has predicted shortage of 10
mn IT professionals in India by 2010. Also, it is our estimates that at least
20% of them are the one who need to understand storage technology and
information management. EAP is geared towards building this pool of skilled
information management and storage professionals.
What is EMC's role in this program?
We are giving end-to-end support to institutions that choose to offer this
course as part of their program. We will provide the curriculum, course content,
learning material, faculty training and software simulators for the program. The
simulators run standard Windows PC and students can simulate various storage
technologies on this. We would also provide program support in terms of
examination papers, and sample assignments. We are targeting colleges, which
fulfill certain prerequisites. These include courses on operating systems such
as UNIX, database and networking technology.
What route is EMC taking to impart these programs?
Right now we have tied up with 15 institutions and plan to sign up around 50
more in this program by the end of 2006. Recently, we signed up with Delhi
College of Engineering (DCE) where DCE will offer information storage and
management courses as part of its curriculum from July 2006. As an EMC Nodal
Academy, DCE will also act as the regional hub for the EAP in North India and
will support EMC in identifying and appointing other educational institutions
and training the faculty of the other institutes in the region.
How would the students benefit from this course?
There are two ways in which students are going to benefit. As this course is
part of their normal college curriculum, they get their normal degrees.
Secondly, the content that we have packaged in this program also allows students
to take international examinations and certifications in storage technology and
information management. They can take this through pre-matriculation. So at the
time of graduation, students would have a normal degree as well as a
certification, which is optional.
Is EMC looking at any revenue stream from this?
For EMC, we are not looking at this as a revenue stream. We see a huge gap
in terms of skills in the area of storage technology and storage management and
being a market leader we have some responsibility. We will train the trainers
and will not charge anything from the institutions. No royalty, no training fees
and no fee for the simulator. We will come out with content relevant to the
industry and academia and what the institutions do and how they go and market
this program depends on the policies of individual institutions.
Pragati Simlote
mail@dqindia.com Page(s) 1
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