Goa may have five Information Technology (IT) colleges that churn over a 1,000 students every year, but only a handful are placed in companies and organizations within the State. The reason: the lack of an IT atmosphere and resources to make it one.
It isn’t that Goans lack the potential to be at the top. The likes of Andrea Colaco and Cognizant CEO Francisco D’Souza only prove this point. But the education sector may not be creating the required levels of interest in students and that too from a very young age.
Unlike Bangalore that have drafted a separate policy called the i4 policy dedicated specifically to IT, ITeS, Innovations Incentives policy, Goa functions with an Investment Policy of 2014 and no separate IT policy as such. The last drafted IT policy is in 2005. A look at the Investment Policy 2014 and its clear the government takes a more industry based approach rather than an educated one.
For an industry that doesn’t necessarily function with engineering or technology institute graduates, the extent of people from different sectors working in the IT industry are various.
Even B.Com graduates with added certifications in networking, SNAP or SQL dialog are capable of easily earning five figure salaries.
Gurudev Naik, president of the Goa IT Professionals says it isn’t just an IT college that generates the workforce for an IT industry, there are a lot more.
“Students with degrees in BCA, BSc. Computer Science, Masters in Computer Science, BE Engineering, IT computer and electronics, even a B.Com graduate can work as a functional consultant,” he says. In addition to professional degrees, jobs in canteens and workshops only add to the IT industry work force.
Vincent Toscano, a mechanical engineer by profession is working as a product analyst at an IT company in Bangalore. He says that despite coming from a mechanical background, he managed to get employed in an IT company, pointing to the fact that many jobs besides programming and development do exist.
What is needed he says is an analytical mind. “Having an analytical mind is a fundamental must have. Engineers are taught to be analytical, they have different ways of looking at a problem, and that’s why they are preferred in the IT sector. They come with a pre conditioned mind of problem solving,” he says.
But Goa doesn’t lack in the intellect required for this industry. What it does lack however is the conditioning. Toscano takes an example of a typical Gujarati family. Known to be good business men, he says, business is in their blood, though not literally.
A child in a Gujarati business family grows up in an ambience where business is spoken and discussed all the time. In Goa however, he asks the question, “What example are families setting to their children? One where the mother is a house wife and the father is on the ship. In the end they grow up to be waiters and butlers.”
Ricky Noronha who runs Online Productivity Solutions Pvt Ltd from an office in Verna began operations in 1995. The unique feature his office speaks of is the presence of a vast majority of Goan youngsters fresh out of college.
“I prefer working with freshers than experienced professionals. It is easier for me to train them while at the same time see what they’re good at. I have made some students who’ve interned here work on international projects only because they’re good and capable of handling it,” says the IT professional Noronha who’s major client is US based Microsoft.
It’s not that there isn’t any talent here in Goa, he says. “One of the things we’re good at is our English skills, the other is our ability to think calmly and thus deliver clean and classy work. This is something professionals in other metros wouldn’t understand.”
But will having an IIT set up in the state help in making matters for the IT industry in Goa any better? Not necessarily, says Toscano.
“There are 50 times more non IIT graduates working in IT industries. Having an IIT in Goa won’t make much of a difference. What needs to be done is implant in children’s mind the awareness and inspire them to enter the IT industry. Maybe children in urban areas like Margao, Mapusa and Panjim have the awareness, but children in villages have no idea,” he says suggesting introducing relevant subjects in middle and high school.
An IIT may add face value to Goa as an IT destination, but only time will tell as to whether Goa can move beyond proclaiming itself to be a tourism destination.
