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Inadequate skills make students unemployable

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CIOL Bureau
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NEW DELHI: The developer community worldwide has been always been Microsoft's strong focus, specially the Indian developer community for the its rich talent pool and the way India's role has shaped up in the global software development scenario.

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According to Tarun Gulati, General Manager for Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) at Microsoft India and a part of the India Leadership Team, "From Microsoft's perspective we look at the developers and software architects as the core franchises of our platforms. In India for the past ten years we have been engaging very closely with the developer community, which not only includes making them aware of the MS products and platforms but also analyses their needs from a long term career growth perspective and provides them with necessary support."

Microsoft engages with the community through third-party user groups, MSDN online, mega-events like IndiMIX and TechEd, monthly newsletters, road yatras etc.

Microsoft's efforts for the Indian developer community are aimed at helping them broaden their horizons, nurturing their talent, and also helping India transition into the software products space, informed Tarun.

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Concerned over the huge employability gap that exists in the students who pass out from colleges and those who are employable, Tarun informed that out of the 400,000 students who pass out from engineering colleges every year only about 40,000 are directly employable. To bridge this gap Microsoft is closely working with universities, training institutes as well as the government in providing required training to these students using several training aids and self-learning channels to help them self-evaluate and move ahead. "We need to seriously work around our education system to foster long-term strategic thinking amongst the youth," opines Tarun.

Microsoft has undertaken several initiatives to engage with the 35,000 plus software architect community in India, in the recent past. The software giant has recently announced its partnership with International Association of Software Architects (IASA) a neutral, third-part specialists and together the two will educate the developer community in India to help them grow up into successful software architects.

"We have a strong focus on the developer community and now we wish to engage with the software architects also in a similar manner. Software architects is an important audience not only to India but global IT companies as well. We have launched special online programs for developers to help them acquire requisite skills and industry recognized certification. Additionally, the recent collaboration between IASA and Microsoft is aimed at providing developers with an opportunity to gain strong technical and leadership skills and form a distinguished software architect community," informed Tarun.

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Speaking on the need for more software architects, Tarun informed "There has been a gradual shift in the way things are being done in India. Indian companies are handling large sized mission critical end-to-end solutions for global as well as domestic markets, hence there is demand for people who have the expertise to handle such projects."

Microsoft has been running self-learning online programs for developers to hone their skills and become SW architects. MS' Aspiring SW Architect Program and SW Architect Program Certification tests are conducted by third-party organizations. Such certifications help architects in acquiring skills needed to be a good SW architects.

CIOL Bureau

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