Thursday, September 22, 2011

For Vishnu and other working students in Mantri

We have on Mantri's security staff quite a few students - Vishnu, Manikandan, Rajesh and others I haven't met.They work night shift to be able to go to college. We have service technicians doing advanced diploma - Ezhumalai and Aashik. They deserve our support and encouragement, don't they.
Mantri residents can do the following:
1)Plant a sapling in the Mantri complex to celebrate their drive and hard work.
2)Contribute to get a desk-top computer installed at the staff rest area, for use by the likes of Vishnu. I find them using their cell phone to access Internet.
3)Guide them to acquire communication and other soft skills needed to appear in job interviews.
4)Help them with reference to and info. on prospective employers.
I read in this context about a Chennai IT company - Zoho Corp - that hires economically backward high school students to be trained in software engineering. The company is run by Mr Sridhar Vembu, who has an engineering degree from IIT Madras and Ph.D from Princeton.
Blogger Sramana Mitra in an interview with Zoho CEO quotes him as saying, “We hire young professionals whom others disregard. We don’t look at colleges, degrees or grades...go to poor high-schools,and hire those kids who are bright...We train them, and in 9 months, they produce at the level of college grads. Their resumes are not as marketable, but I tell you, these kids can code just as well as the rest. Often, better.”

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