Bengaluru
There exists a crisis in Indian education; the academia and educational institutions cannot operate in isolation anymore in a highly converging and rapidly changing technology landscape, cautioned Clifton Menezes, India Head of Group Portfolio at Capgemini.
“At least four academics recently approached us to explore the possibility of redrawing their syllabi to keep their institutions updated with the changing requirement of business globally,” said Mr. Menezes, who is responsible for Capgemini’s go-to-market transition and digitisation technologies.
“Educators and educational institutions are increasingly realising the fact that corporations like Capgemini, which are focusing on innovation, and doing extensive research around cutting-edge technologies, will be able to help them change and fit the industry requirements,” he told The Hindu.
“The faculty in India is good, but the problem is all of them are not up to date with fast-moving technological changes that are taking place. There is a lag,” he said.
“The industry-academia collaborations are going to be a win-win for all and academia can not operate in isolation any more,” Mr. Menezes emphasised.
Capgemini had already collaborated with many IITs, universities and start-ups in the country in Quantum Computing, AI, Design and Edge Computing.
“Capgemini has been quite inclined towards innovation and that makes us more attractive to academia globally,” he said.
However, the technology evangelist at Capgemini said, IT “need not always mean doing complex things”.
For instance, the French tech firm is helping to digitally transform a large postal organisation in the U.K.
“With Capgemini’s intervention, the postal company started partnering with large e-tailers such as Ebay and Amazon as the postal firm knows the last-mile like nobody else in U.K. and Europe,” he added.
With Capgemini’s help the postal firm is now able to roll out products in weeks instead of six months and more.
“Today, some 35% of this postal company’s entire business comes from last mile logistics business on behalf of Ebay and Amazon,” he added.
Capgemini’s recently concluded Tech Fiesta brought together its entire ecosystem comprising employees, partners, customers, the academia (from over 50 universities) and start-ups (representatives from over 100 firms) at the tech capital of India.
At Tech Fiesta, the company showcased cutting-edge GTM solutions to clients that have had a significant impact across retail, healthcare, manufacturing, BFSI, and services sectors. With several formats of interactions such as demo zones, panel discussions, and interactive sessions, Capgemini also presented 20 innovative solutions across the entire spectrum of future technologies.
“Today, we are in the midst of too many technologies such as Cloud, IOT, Quantum Computing, Mesh, Edge, Data Analytics, Artificial Intelligence and many more are evolving as we speak. It creates a quite involved and intense tech environment for any individual or organisation, so it is good to do things in collaboration,” Mr. Menezes recommended.
