3 students from city institute to compete in international event

Coimbatore: Three students from a city institute will be part of the 27-member Indian team in the World Skills Competition to be held in Abu Dhabi between October 15 and 18.

Anuradh Thandayan Madappurakkal from Kannur in Kerala, Sarath Vishwesh Prabhakar from the city and Tamil Selvan Periyasamy from Tirunelveli, all students of the Gedee Technical Training Institute will represent India in CNC (computer numerical router control) turning, CNC milling and plastic die engineering, respectively.

The three students from GTTI were selected about six months ago for the competition after rounds of regional and national level contests. "Sarath and Tamil Selvan are presently undergoing a week-long training in Germany at DMG Mori Academy. Since there are no sophisticated equipment in India and there is no scope of training the students here. With the help of the national skill development corporation we have sent the students and an expert each for the training," said Akila Shanmugam, director of corporate communication at GTTI. The experts are chosen through a test, she said.

Speaking to TOI, Anuradh said, "I practice for 8-10hours a day for the competition. I went to Singapore few days ago to get trained for the competition." Anuradh has completed two projects following his training in Singapore and is confident of performing well at Abu Dhabi.

So far, India hold one medal (silver) that was won by a GTTI student in 2009 edition that was held in Calgary, Canada. "So far, a total of eight students from GTTI have represented India in the competition," Akila said.

"The world skills competition was started in 1950 and hosted by Spain. The first edition had 12 competitions, and from 1953, the competition was held in different countries," said Akila. "In 2000, it was named as World Skills Competition. It was in 2007, India became a member of GTTI and took part in the competition that held in Japan," she added. This year's four-day-long event will have a total of 77 member nations participating in the competition.