Foreign Interns at Infosys - Yet Another Milestone in the Road of IT Boom

chillibreeze writer — Priya Venkatesh

Note: The content presented in this article is true to the best of the knowledge of the author. It is original but for the references to the facts and figures about the InStep program at Infosys and comments of the interns.

Ref source: http://www.infosys.com/media/press_releases/InStep_Induction.pdf. The views of the foreign interns presented in this article have been abridged and recompiled from the above source.

What’s happening?

Globalization has reached its pinnacle. Attracted by the sudden focus on India as the most preferred outsourcing destination, foreign interns have started thronging Indian IT firms. Potential entrepreneurs, prospective managers, likely employees from different parts of the globe are showing keen interest in getting trained at the development centers in India.

Forty Interns from different countries such as the USA, Japan, Canada, Germany and France gathered at the Bangalore campus of the IT major, Infosys Technologies on June 3 2005 as a sequel to the Infosys global internship program, InStep.

InStep, commenced in 1999 with 300 applicants for 14 positions, now has grown to enormous heights with 9000 applicants for 100 positions from 70 universities across the world, including Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Wharton, MIT, London Business School and Asia Institute of Management.

Voices of the Interns at InStep (Infosys):

Brianna Diete, an intern said, “Living in India for a period is a definite value-add to the internship experience”

Geoffrey Gelman from Harvard business school, a recruit in the InStep internship program said, “There has been a lot of debate in the United States on the growing role of India in the world economy. I wanted to investigate this trend firsthand and gain international experience by working at a leading IT company headquartered in India.”

Victoria Chen from Claremont McKenna College said, “When you return, you are more valuable in the world market because you have an increased understanding of a world-class company in one of the fastest growing economies of the world.”

Upshots of such Indian Internship programs:
Parallel to the situation of Indian aspirants taking up internships from US companies, the number of foreign aspirants drawing beads on Indian internships is emphatically on the rise.

Foreign interns like the hands-on experience that they get on metamorphous software services and solutions that are making headway to global solutions in the development centers across the globe. They get trained not only in development of codes and testing but also get a technical know-how on business confabulations and corporate project planning.

Such Indian internship programs meet the local requirements both in terms of the academic standards of the foreign graduates, who have joined the program, and their cultural sensitivities.

The foreign interns here not only gain the requisite know-how and technical expertise but also provide trained manpower for strengthening the human resource base at onsite locations in future.

Apart from learning the tactics of configuration management, contingency and mitigation plans in software services, the foreign interns also learn behavioral principles like transition management, time management by meeting strict deadlines, communication skills, corporate culture, team building qualities and leadership tactics.

The effectiveness of the program can be reckoned from the fact that such interns get selected by clients to work onsite at client locations over within months of completion of the program. Their technical papers published in esteemed technical magazines and presentations at the international level stand testimony to the plethora of knowledge and training that they get when they come here.

The future

India has been a software powerhouse providing various IT enabled services. Now that the knowledge work and training has started its relocation to India, let us be sanguine about the fact that the day when India will shine as the supreme software giant of the world is definitely not very far!

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Priya says "...Born and brought up in Trichy,am now settled in Chennai.Amidst tight schedule at work, I love reading novels articles and what not.A novice at writing, I always want to give my best for it.I love visiting tourist spots and adventure parks and having a sumptous dinner with my husband whenever possible! Like to spend sometime at my hometown with my parents and sister whenever time permits!"

Foreign Interns at Infosys - Yet Another Milestone in the Road of IT Boom

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