Bangalore: The global internship programme of Infosys Technologies Ltd, India's second largest IT bellwether, has turned out to be an ideal launch pad for overseas interns to pursue a global career.
InStep, the company's internship programme, is an intensive eight- to 24-week stint offered every year to 125 students selected from universities in the US, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region for getting hands-on experience in its projects ranging from application development to business consulting across verticals.
"We believe InStep is an ideal platform for tomorrow's global workforce to groom. The programme was initiated eight years ago to gain mindshare with students from top colleges as they could be clients, employees, competitors or even leaders of tomorrow," Infosys chief mentor and non-executive chairman N.R. Narayana Murthy said on June 10 in his address to about 50 interns working in the company's main campus.
Since 1999 when the programme was launched, the $3-billion global firm trained about 500 overseas students till 2006 for global careers in diverse sectors. Of them 14 have joined Infosys, including 10 in the last fiscal (2006-07) and are working at its development centres in the US, Europe and Australia.
The 125 interns pursuing under-graduation, post-graduation and doctoral course in engineering, business management and liberal arts including humanities were selected from about 12,000 student applicants in 85 top universities in the US, Europe and APAC.
"The interns are selected through a rigorous process involving academic profile, interviews and projects they need to do in the company as part of their course. The nature and duration of the internship depends on the project they take up and how it helps them in shaping for a global career," Infosys associate vice-president and head of corporate planning Sanjay Purohit told reporters at the induction ceremony of the eighth batch.
This year's batch of interns represent 28 nationalities and are from 54 reputed universities worldwide, including Italy, Spain, Denmark, Israel, Chile and Norway. They will work at the company's software development centres in India, France and the US.
"The innovative programme gives an opportunity to work on real projects in the area of marketing, corporate planning, education and research, enterprise solution and software engineering and technology laboratories (SETLabs).
With a view to building a global workforce, the company has already recruited 90 students out of the 125 it has targeted to hire in this fiscal (2007-08).
Explaining the philosophy behind the InStep, Murthy said that in a globalised world, it was essential for Infoscians to interact with other cultures and vice versa to learn from each other.
"It is an opportunity to showcase our strength and how India is modernising. If these youngsters become leaders in their countries in future and if we can create a good impression on them at this stage, they will have a soft spot for us.
"Infosys is a good example of what India is and its culture. There are a lot of good things happening in the country. They will be exposed to many aspects of our culture," Murthy said.
With around 97 per cent of the company's revenue coming from exports, the programme is aimed at exposing students from the geographies it operates and has long-term clients.
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