Seed Infotech to place IT engineers in Japan

PUNE: Pune boasts of the largest number of students learning Japanese
language in India. At any given time, 2000 students undergo advanced Japanese
language training in Pune University.

Meanwhile, even as the IT slowdown has hit Japan, industry experts there
claim that the layoffs have primarily been in the hardware sector. The software
industry in Japan still requires professionals, three lakh IT trained
professionals to be precise, in a span of two years, the experts say.

Seed Infotech, a Pune-based company, has decided to cash in on this human
resource opportunity. The company has joined hands with i-POC, Japan with the
aim of placing trained Indian IT engineers in Japan. i-POC is a newly formed
subsidiary of C-Cube Corporation of the NTT (Nagoya) and IT training company
RBEC Corp. The capital investment for the new company is 40 million yen with
C-Cube holding 75 per cent and RBEC Corp holding 25 per cent of the shares.

Kenji Ohashi, CEO and director, i-POC, said they had zeroed in on Pune
because of the huge pool of IT talent and the large mass of Japanese speaking
students. Narendra Barhate, director and CEO, Seed Infotech, was also optimistic
of reaching out to the Japanese market through this alliance with i-POC.

With the cooperation, Seed Infotech would conduct the training. Apart from
the usual IT education course, the stress would be on a short-term basic course
in Japanese. This would give the students entry into the IT Professionals
College (ITPC)- the new venture between the two companies wherein the students
not only get to learn Japanese language, but also receive training in Japanese
business practices and culture. On completion of the two-month course, the
students would be placed in a Japanese company through i-POC.

i-POC will take care of the accommodation of the Indian engineers and also
provide support through the Indian Engineer and Support center.

The companies intend to make a modest start by placing 150 IT engineers in
March 2002 and 250 the following year.

This activity is expected to open another avenue of offshore development in
India. The work on prototype projects has already started at Zensoft India Pvt.
Ltd., a 100 per cent subsidiary of Seed Infotech. Depending on the response, it
hopes to start franchisees in other cities such as Bangalore at a later stage.
Seed Infotech hopes for a turnover of Rs. 20 crore from the ITPC in three years
if the idea of franchisees take off.