CMR University (CMRU) of Bangalore, India, is collaborating with IBM to offer undergraduate and graduate level program curricula focused on Cloud Computing, Business Analytics and IT Applications in Finance / Management, to provide students with the needed skills for jobs in these fields.
According to the NASSCOM (National Association of Software & Services Companies) HR survey, recruiters are looking for skill base trained in mobility, social media, cloud and big data. The top 5 tech skills in demand are: data scientists, cloud/virtualization, mobile apps, platform engineering and user experience demand. According to NASSCOM, recruitment based on pure technical skills has reduced drastically from 85% in the period 2000-2006. In 2006-2011, about 65% of people were employed based on technical skills and 22% for domain skills and the balance for soft skills. However, from 2011 onwards, hiring based on technical skills was down to 40%, with domain skills getting equal importance with 40% and soft skills forming the rest at 20%.
IBMâs collaboration with CMR University aims to reduce this technical skills gap of students. As part of IBM's Innovation Centre for Education Program, IBM will provide CMR University the design and delivery of innovative curricula integrated with a Learning Management System from IBMâs Business Partner. Degrees will be awarded by the University. The agreement includes curriculum consultancy with IBM and co-development of Courseware (on current technologies like Cloud / Business Analytics / Mainframe / Infrastructure / Open Source / Telecom & IT Applications in Management). The students will be able to access online course material, discussion forums and other online collaborative functionality's including their project work. IBM will also provide Train-the-Teacher workshops to the faculty, along with webinars and seminars by connecting industry subject matter experts.
IBM will help present real-world application scenarios as project definitions, which describe a typical large application problem in a domain (such as Banking, Financial Services & Insurance, Retail or Healthcare). The assets include data schematics which describe the underlying data structures and the module description which are completed in teams of 3 - 4 students for each project.
The overall categories covered in the program include Management, Finance and Information Technology and will become available during the Academic Year 2014-15, commencing July /August 2014.
IBM will provide CMRU with curricula materials, case study projects as well as IBM experts as guest lecturers. This partnership will impact nearly 4,000 students every year (from Year 4 onwards)
âWe are glad that CMR University has become the 1st Private University in India to enter into this collaborative initiative with IBM for offering various UG/PG programs in Management, Finance, IT and non-Engineering areas, which will augment finishing school efforts of the industry by preparing them better for future employability, said The Vice Chancellor, Dr. Anand K. Joshi, CMR University. "The availability of job-ready graduates will also help fill the gap within the IT Industry, especially in the areas of cloud computing and analytics, The CMR University and IBM developed curricula helps ensure that the UG/PG graduated students are provided with industry-ready talents and managerial resources when they join an organization upon graduating."
The programs that will be offered for the Academic year 2014-15 include: MBA, MSc-IT, BCA (Information Systems Management), B.Com. (Hons.), Bachelor of Business Studies (BBS in Commerce, IT & Management), and other courses to be offered in a phased manner are B.Tech. (CSE/IT), M.Tech. (CSE/IT), Integrated B.Tech.(CSE/IT) + MBA, MCA, to name a few.
âThere is a strong demand for skilled technology and trained management professionals. The IBM Innovation Center for Education initiative will equip the students, at CMR University, to adapt to the dynamics in the industry and drive technology and business innovation. Cloud and Analytics courses will provide deep theoretical knowledge in students, coupled with broad-based industry alignment, interaction, talent discoverability as well as excellence in their professional practice,â said Subram Natarajan, Executive - STG Technical Sales, IBM India South Asia.
Students can also choose to minor or specialize in the following areas like Business Analytics & Optimization, Cloud Computing & Vitualization, Enterprise Computing (Mainframe Technology), IT Infrastructure Management, Infrastructure Systems Management (ISM) and Project Management, Enterprise Mobility and Social Technologies, Banking, Financial Services & Insurance (BFSI) / Financial Technology (BFSI+IT), Open Source Computing, Telecom Informatics, Healthcare Informatics and Retail Informatics.