St Xavier's to conduct IBM ACE programme

IBM and St. Xavier's College (Autonomous) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today, which enables Xavier's to conduct IBM India's Accelerated Career Excellence (ACE) programme.

IBM's programme is aimed to groom technical talent at workplace and provides non-engineering employees of IBM with an opportunity to upgrade their skills and qualification by doing a 4-year MS programme in software engineering.

To facilitate this programme, IBM signed an MoU with the University of Mysore in 2006 to develop a 4-year MS programme for its employees with BSc degree.

The curriculum of this course has been designed and developed jointly by the University of Mysore and IBM.

Under the MoU, IBM would use the expertise of St Xavier's to run this programme for Kolkata-based IBM employees with IBM bearing execution fees.

The programme included venue, faculty, infrastructure, examinations, internal assessments, stationary, and library usage.

Amitabh Ray, vice-president of global delivery"�consulting and application services at IBM, said "IBM strives to ensure that its employees have access to the best learning and training opportunities to help provide career growth opportunities and job rotation possibilities within IBM".

He said this programme was expected to play a significant role in helping IBM tap a fresh talent pool while simultaneously helping IBM staff enhance qualifications in the engineering sector. The MoU with St. Xavier's would enable IBM staff to be a step ahead in the technology-ready era, he added.

After their degree, IBM Kolkata employees would have increased opportunities to be placed at different IBM locations in India, be deployed on different technologies and across business domains, he said.

P C Mathew, principal and secretary of St. Xavier's, said the MoU was a long-term partnership between an industry leader like IBM and St. Xavier's, a centre-of-excellence.

This public-private partnership between academia and industry was based on joint curriculum design, research and teach and train programme for students on market strategic technologies to support the need for IT professionals, he added.

IBM had grown from 38,500 employees in December 2005 to 53,000 as of December 2006 with Kolkata housing IBM's second largest pool of employees after Bangalore.

IBM provided employees with career growth through continuous training and professional development.

Besides, IBM Global Campus, the largest online university, offered more than 20,000 learning modules including 3,500 e-learning and classroom courses plus books and other resources.