The College Connect, an initiative launched by the State government to facilitate linkage between the industries and academic institutes last year is all set to be replicated in other parts of the country, following the phenomenal response to the ‘mentor-mentee’ programme.
As part of the Vikasa Varadhi Bus Yatra, around 100 mentors travelled with 200 students picked up from rural engineering colleges during a 2,000-km trip between Puttur in Chittoor district and Visakhapatnam to various industries offering mentorship last month.
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The organisers have decided to convert the ‘College Connect’ into an NGO and take the success story to the other parts of the country. “This is needed as students in rural areas face problems pertaining to soft skills and are deprived of exposure to become job-ready,” programme chief mentor J.A. Chowdary told The Hindu on Thursday.
He was in the city to take part part in a ‘College Connect’ programme organised at GITAM Deemed to be University.
Mr. Chowdary, Special Chief Secretary and IT Advisor to Chief Minister, said several top honchos, entrepreneurs from across the country as well as domain experts from Silicon Valley, New York, Singapore, Dubai, Tel Aviv and others are volunteering to support their initiative in person as well as in virtual mode.
Some of the local enterprises from the State such as KIA Motors, AP MedTech Zone, Brandix India Apparel City, Sri City, Krishnapatnam Port, Patra India BPO, Visual IT Solutions and Innovation Valley have agreed to take the students on internship and training and offer jobs to those who excel.
“We are excited with our association with this novel initiative. We are firm in offering support in whatever way we can to help rural students to improve their employment quotient,” Abdul Raheem Shaik, CEO of Hyderabad-based Visual IT Solutions, said.
Success story
The initiative will be soon replicated in Bengaluru and Hyderabad from where a good number of experts have come forward to offer mentorship.
“We have plans to open branches in Pune and Gurugram too, after flooded with requests to introduce the programme there,” Mr. Chowdary said.
The programme that was first launched at Prakasam Engineering College, Madanapalle Engineering College, Bullayya Women’s Engineering College and Anantalakshmi Institute of Engineering and Science is now being implemented in 17 colleges in the State, benefitting around 22,000 students. The number of mentors is also increasing.
Some of the positive developments after the first round of the programme include decision by IB Hub to take part in startup bootcamp training slated in March and April, a firm promoted by an orphan girl receiving angel funding and support to market in the Europe, support for a student group which developed education games.