So what if Ahmedabad has been late plugging into IT, Amdavadis are steadily going up the knowledge highway

He has always been smart with money. Now he’s realised that if he has to keep the moolah coming in, there is no better way to do it than plugging into the knowledge economy. Make way for Money-bhai turned Mind-bhai, who after having watched the dotcom boom from the sidelines, is now all set to ride the big wave of IT and ITES that has already hitting the city’s shore. The change is perceptible. From just the odd BPO struggling to mak ing its presence felt on the global map and Gujarat’s first IT park —Creative Infocity — languishing for years for want of takers, today there is a sea change. “We have 4.5 lakh sq ft of new space coming up in two towers by April 2008 and confirmed demand for over 8 lakh sq ft space,” says elated Creative Infocity executive director Hitendra Barot, who had to struggle for years to fill up the first 2.5 lakh sq ft tower after Infocity set up shop in October 2000.

Today, hordes of Texans today owe their life to an Infocity-based Effective Teleservices that guided them to safety from the wrath of hurricane Rita. Amdavadi techies, who had ventured to Silicon Valley in the US, are flocking home, trigger this new wave. Like Pratul Shroff who today operates his $15-million chip designing firm eInfochips with 650 employees or Kaushal and Parul Mehta, who returned after a 10-year stint in Silicon Valley in the late nineties to set up Motif that has grown from 25 employees a $10 million, 500 employee outfit running back office operations for global financial banks right from Ahmedabad. Mushrooming technology institutes like the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communications Technology and Nirma University are already churning out more techies, even as Gujarat government has mooted SCOPE (Society for Creation of Opportunities through Proficiency in English) to help Money-bhai brush up his English and a Gujarat Knowledge Corporation to help him grab that industry-friendly tech degree.

“Once started, the corporation will offer as many as 86 courses, be it engineering or MBA and prepare techies for a career in IT,” a senior government official told TOI. If Infosys CEO Nandan Nilekani had recently lamented on how to employ 1,000 persons, he has to interview 10,000 people as most youth held fancy degrees that did not really equip them with industry-friendly skills. Ahmedabad, however, is hoping that by the time Infosys comes knocking on its door, Nilekani’s job will be much more easier.


Playing catch-up... With a mouse!

   Your heart may sink when you compare the number of engineering seats in colleges in cyber cities Bangalore and Hyderabad with those in Ahmedabad. It may seem that Ahmedabad is not even in the race to make its presence felt in the knowledge economy.
But educational institutions across the city have shed their pessimism of five years ago. Because from a measly 6,000-odd engineering seats in 2002, Gujarat has more than doubled the number today. Because Ahmedabad is soon to get its own IIT campus. Because IT giants are looking to set up shop here and looking to employ Gujaratis.

“The age of just IT and computer engineering being identified with the knowledge society is over,” says N V Vasani, vice chancellor of Nirma University. “We have reached a stage where the biggest software firms are recruiting mechanical and even electronics and communication engineering, because they have projects in related fields. The knowledge domain goes beyond IT.”

He adds that everyone from Infosys, Satyam and TCS has picked up students from campuses across Ahmedabad with hefty pay packages, whether it be L D College of Engineering or Nirma. This means that once there is critical mass of the knowledge industry in Ahmedabad, they will be able to pick up the best brains from the city itself, not having to import them from elsewhere.

State government officials accept there is a long way to match the demand for trained manpower with adequate supply. “If you take all technical courses, including small and big courses run at the polytechnics and the Industrial Training Institutes, then Gujarat produces nearly 42,000 trained personnel,” a senior official said on condition of anonymity. “But a city like Ahmedabad producing just 2,100 engineers is minuscule. We plan to produce 45,000 engineers from Gujarat in the next five years with Ahmedabad getting a major chunk of the share.”

The government is banking on more self-financed institutions setting up base in Gujarat. Sources said that at least 80 per cent of new institutions will have to be privately funded.