Aptech plans more N-Power centres overseas

Aptech Limited, a global learning solutions company is exploring new overseas geographies like Latin America, South Africa and South-East Asia for setting up its N-Power centres.

"We are exploring the possibilities of setting up our overseas centres in new geographies like South Africa, Latin America and South-East Asia as we feel that these overseas markets offer good scope for growth", a senior company executive told Business Standard.

At present, Aptech runs one overseas N-power centre in Vietnam. Apart from its overseas expansion plans, the company also aims to expand its footprint in the domestic market.

Aptech which has a newtork of 45 N-Power centres across the country plans to add another 30 centres by the end of 2009, thereby taking its total network to 75. The company had targeted to churn out about 8,000 N-Power professionals in the country by the end of 2010.

Out of the 30 proposed N-Power centres of Aptech, one centre would come up in Bhubaneswar which would be the second such centre of the company in the city. It may be noted that Aptech had rolled out its first N-Power centre in Bhubaneswar in May 2008 which has an intake capacity of 500 students.

Asked if the prevailing economic recession had impacted the hardware industry in the country, the company executive said, "The economic downturn has not impacted the hardware industry in the country as much as software services. There is still a demand for skilled professionals in the hardware and networking industry and our courses are designed to meet the changing needs of the industry."

According to the estimates of the Manufacturers Association of Information Technology (MAIT), the manpower requirement for the hardware and networking industry in India has gone up to two million by the end of 2008. Aptech’s N-Power centres were meant to catre to the growing demand for hardware and networking professionals.

The N-Power courses would lead to international vendor certifications like CompTIA (Computing Technology Industry Association), Microsoft and Red Hat. These courses are divided into Basic, Foundation, Career and Professional tracks and the duration ranges from 45 days to 11 months.

The most popular program is the N-Power Certified Enterprise Systems Engineer with two months of industry internship.The course fee ranges from Rs 3,300 to Rs 44,000 depending on the course category and its duration.