Technology

IT-BPO industry to address HR issue

by Gamini Warushamana

[email protected]

The Software Exporters Association (SEA) has introduced a new program called “New Age Academy Program” (NAAP) to address the lack of human resources, the main issue faced by the IT-BPO industry.

“The NAAP plan was envisaged during the National IT-BPO Workforce Strategy conference held in August 2007 and the SEA finalised the program last week.

In this program we aim to expand the proven best practices on a larger scale with all stakeholders, Chairman of the SEA Mano Sekaram told the Sunday Observer .

The NAAP will create a nucleus bringing together students, universities, industry and financial institutions and make a pragmatic market driven education system that caters to the demand in the IT-BPO industry, he said.

NAAP will create opportunities for students who have no access to public education in higher studies, the students who pass the GCE (A/L) examination but do not have opportunities to enter universities due to capacity limitations in the universities.

Simultaneously, the program will provide the industry candidates who are better suited and adoptable, with high learn ability, mature and achievement oriented. The NAAP will also help the companies to identify potential future employees early.

Biggest constraint

Sekaram said that the single biggest constraint for Sri Lanka to capture a larger share of the booming global IT-BPO industry is the lack of suitably qualified, employable youth in the numbers required by the industry.

The NAAP focuses on external degree programs of state universities and private institutions that have set up degree programs in collaboration with foreign universities.

The industry has recognised these courses as high quality.

The students who followed the programs have also secured jobs with significant starting salaries. Due to the limited capacity in the State university system, the study recognised private and external degree programs as key avenues to increase HR capacity in the IT-BPO industry.

In the NAAP program the prospective candidates should possess the requisite qualification (based on GCE O/L, A/L Examinations or other results) and have gained admission to an NAAP participating academic institution.

The candidate may secure work/study employment with a NAAP participating employer.

Thereafter the candidate may receive a NAAP earmarked loan from a participating financial institution. The employer underwrites a portion of the course fee, disbursing funds directly to the academic institution.

The academic institution may offer favourable NAAP course fee and or defer a portion of the fee until completion of the degree.

The banks offer NAAP loans at attractive interest rates without any guarantor or collateral deferring principal repayment until after the degree is completed.

NAAP program

The concepts of the NAAP program are to prepare a graduating student to enter the workforce, match their skills with current and anticipated industry needs and ensure the enhancement of the talent pool for the IT-BPO industry.

The program has focused on all issues relating to making the best suitable professionals.

Sekaram said that the graduates who pass out today lack communication skills, English knowledge and are not familiar with work ethics, software development vs product development, legal, standards and emerging technologies.

The NAAP employers may conduct mandatory seminars and workshops in these areas.

In addition to the industry and the students, the NAAP program may benefit all other stakeholders as well. For instance the global “student loan” market is a multi-billion dollar industry.

This market is hardly tapped in Sri Lanka and the program will open a vast market for financial institutions. Sekaram said that in the program there is no bond between the student and employer or the student and financial institution.

On completing the degree students will be free to seek new employment. However, arrangements have been made for loan security and the industry will maintain a student database that will list all details of student loans disbursed under the NAAP

. This data will be made available to embassies on request and may restrict emigration of graduates with outstanding loans.

Intel launches Lanka’s first classmate PC Lab

Intel EM Limited in collaboration with the Ministry of Education launched Sri Lanka’s first Classmate PC Lab at the Sri Rahula Balika Maha Vidyalaya school in Malambe on Thursday.

The introduction of the lab, under the World Ahead Master Memorandum of Understanding signed between the Education Ministry and Intel EM Limited, enhances the teaching and learning processes, through the use of state-of-the-art technology.

Country Business Manager, Intel EM Limited, Sri Lanka Liaison officer Indika de Zoysa said, “The launch of Sri Lanka’s first Classmate PC Lab is a pioneering step in integrating technology into the field of education. He thanked the Ministry of Education for their support in enhancing learning through the usage of technology.”

The Intel World Ahead Program aims to enhance lives by accelerating access to uncompromised technology for everyone, anywhere in the world. Focused on people in the world’s developing communities, it integrates and extends Intel’s efforts to advance progress in three areas: accessibility, connectivity and education.

Intel’s goal is not only to extend affordable PC access but to develop the PCs tailored to local needs, drive critical connectivity, cultivate sustainable local capabilities and provide the technology education needed to make a meaningful difference in people’s lives.

As part of these local initiatives in Sri Lanka, the Classmate PC Lab was inaugurated by Minister of Education Susil Premajayantha at a ceremony, in the presence of officials from the Ministry of Education, Intel EM Limited and the principal, teachers and students of Sri Rahula Balika Maha Vidyalaya.

In the first phase 25 PCs will be deployed in the classroom. Students will be taught the English medium Grade 6 Science syllabus. For teachers, the CMPC will go a long way in easing the integration of technology into the classroom, which is a requirement for the 21st century.

The CMPC project will be deployed in 20 schools around the island with a launch in Kandy scheduled in the near future. Five thousand students will benefit from this project by the end of the year.

The Intel-powered Classmate PCs is a rugged learning platform with special education features, which facilitate effective student-teacher collaboration, thus, improving the experience of learning and educating.

Designed specifically for primary students in emerging markets, these mobile personal learning devices provide access to a world of innovative and interactive information, applications and services.

The Classmate PC resembles a textbook for seamless integration into the classroom and allows teachers to monitor classroom activity, as well as supplement lectures with interactive materials.

Students can collaborate, exchange information and review e-learning material easily.

The PC also enables a teacher to make presentations, guide students’ access to the Internet, deliver specific controlled content, and interact individually with students and parents.

The included education applications integrate with other non-computing learning tasks such as note-taking and handwriting by utilising digital pen attachments.

Reliance Communications India partner appointed

Reliance Communications, the largest mobile solution provider in India has appointed PCH Holdings and its subsidiary Greenwich Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. to market the world renowned Internet Data Centre (IDC) in Sri Lanka.

The agreement for the partnership was exchanged at a ceremony at the Galadari Hotel on Wednesday. The services of the partnership include managed hosting, co-location, disaster recovery, business continuity, security, storage, IT consultancy, content management, professional support and a range of application solutions.

Chairman, PCH Holdings, S. H. M. Rishan said in a knowledge based society the need for data security, reliability and accessibility are essential components.

Sri Lanka can look forward to a cutting edge solution with a world renowned Internet solution provider. “The partnership enables us with access to knowledge sharing which will be a win-win situation for both parties and clients”, he said.PCH Holdings is one of the largest integrated solution providers in Sri Lanka offering ICT infrastructure solutions and a range of IT business applications.

Reliance is a global leader in IDC and its clients include global leaders in banking, travel, transportation, insurance, healthcare, communications and financial services. LF

HP BladeSystem servers lead with 35% on Top 500 list

HP will continue to strengthen its position on the Top500 list, a ranking of the world’s 500 most powerful supercomputers, with HP BladeSystem c-Class servers dominating as the most prominent computing architecture on the list.

HP BladeSystem c-Class servers power 176 entries, or 35 per cent of the total entries on the Top500 list. This is more than any other single computing architecture and more blade installations than all other vendors combined.

Bladesystems have experienced strong momentum in high-performance computing, with 66 per cent of the supercomputers on the Top500 list, 329 total entries, now configured with blade servers.

For the second consecutive year, the HP BladeSystem installation at Computational Research Laboratories (CRL), a wholly owned company of the Tata Group, India’s largest conglomerate, is ranked in the top 10 of the TOP500 list and remains the most powerful supercomputer in the Asia Pacific region.

The HP BladeSystem cluster at CRL is also the world’s largest system used for research in cloud computing.

With 183 entries on the exclusive list, HP has increased the number of servers catalogued by 11 per cent compared to its November 2007 ranking.

To highlight HP’s expertise and investment in high-performance and cloud computing environments built on scale-out technologies, the company is showcasing the world’s first two-in-one server blade, the HP ProLiant BL2x220c, at the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, Germany from June 17-20.

The HP BL2x220c server blade powers one of the world’s most energy-efficient, industry-standard clusters, according to data reported in this latest edition of the TOP500 list.

The two-in-one server blade is designed for customers that require a high-performance solution that delivers significant power per watt. The HP BL2x220c’s two independent servers in a single blade configuration offer double the compute power while reducing cooling and power costs. It achieves this by allowing all 32 server nodes to share a single power supply and cooling system.

The system delivers industry-leading performance density with up to 12.28 teraflops per second double-precision peak performance in an industry standard rack.

“Through innovation and a unique understanding of high-performance computing needs, HP can help customers maximise application performance without increasing power usage,” said vice president and general manager, Industry Standard Servers, HP Asia Pacific and Japan Tony Parkinson.

“The rapid adoption of HP BladeSystem technology, including the HP BL2x220C, on the TOP500 supercomputer list, clearly reflects HP’s ability to deliver customers computing technology optimised for large scale-out and emerging cloud computing environments.”

OpenArc releases newest product - ww.skylease.lk

OpenArc Systems Management, a leader in Leasing, Merchant Banking and Finance Software in Sri Lanka has released its newest product www.skylease.lk as a module of its Internet Banking and Finance software solution namely ‘SkyBank’.

In a recent product launch the founder Chairman/CEO of OpenArc Daya Hettiarachchi, explained the features of this new ‘on-demand’ software solution which according to him, is the country’s very first, commercially available, Internet based on-demand software solution.

This goes in line with the novel concept of Free and Open Software where you need not buy and maintain big software solutions but you use the software solutions available on the Internet and pay for the amount of usage.

Software is also becoming like electricity and water where you need not own a power generation plant or a water reservoir to use those utilities. Instead you may pay an initial fee and take a power line or a water line and then start using them as you wish and then pay according to the amount of usage.

The beauty of this software solution is that any company who has got the leasing licence or finance company licence may virtually start its business operations immediately and virtually from anywhere in the country with a laptop computer and a wireless connection to the Internet.

Such company may have mobile offices and on the move offer services to customers at their doorsteps, and do leasing and banking transactions all on the Internet.

They need not have expensive networks of computers, Servers and even IT people such as expensive database administrators, systems administrators and so on.We at OpenArc take care of all those needs and our server farm will take care of all the data processing tasks and maintenance job.

The entire system will be available on internet and that means wherever you are around the world you have ready access to vital business information up to the moment, such as performance of officers, amount of leases done by them, collection of rentals, interest income realised, said Hettiarachchi.