Nasscom launches TechNgage; aims to skill budding IT innovators

R Chandrashekhar, president, Nasscom

In a bid to enable India become the hub of innovation, Nasscom IT Services Council (NITSC) on Thursday announced the launch of TechNgage. The initiative aims to enhance the existing technological skills available in the IT industry and is a part of its key initiative–Celebrating Technology and Technologists.
 
TechNgage is a three-year programme, where the first one will focus on celebrating technologists. A six-day tech event will be held this year in cities like Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai. During the event, participants will be invited for 24-hour sessions to contribute towards smart cities in India and it will be open to all IT technologists. The winners will be awarded as Nasscom Technology Fellows and Nasscom Technology Explorers.
 
R Chandrashekhar, president, Nasscom, said, “With TechNgage, we want to democratise access to highly skilled people in the country to support budding innovations which are now playing a massive role in the growth of the sector.” The programme will help specialists keep pace with the latest developments in the IT sector globally and in turn, encourage and motivate employees to upgrade their skills to become the next generation IT experts, he added.
 
The council will select 1,000 participants out of the initial 15,000, who will then get an opportunity to engage in the 24-hour hackathon across six cities. The top 18 participants (three from every city) will be given the objective to solve a real problem under Digital India. The criteria for winning are innovation, frugal design or engineering and extent of impact.
 
Sushma Rajagopalan, chair, NITSC, said, “Sustainable programmes like TechNgage will help us identify technologists of great merit and provide a platform to solve complex problems using an interdisciplinary approach.  The industry needs to bring out the individual contributors and leverage TechNgage-like platforms to celebrate them.”