Infy and the world's largest training centre

Can a trainee software engineer dream of the following as part of his first job?

• A fitness centre and recreation facilities.
• An Employee Care Centre on campus that houses a gymnasium, table tennis and squash courts, a swimming pool, bowling alley and meditation hall.
• An international-class cricket ground and a multipurpose ground with a 6-lane synthetic track, as well as basketball, volleyball and tennis courts.
• A multiplex with three screens and auditorium complex, which has a capacity of 1,300 seats.

You can indeed dream of all these and more if you just got selected for your first job at Infosys.

The Infosys Global Education Centre (IGEC) at Mysore, the largest IT training centre in the world, is a marvellous place that hones the technological and managerial skills of prospective Infoscions, thereby creating cohesive multicultural teams.

According to the data given to rediff.com by Infosys, the company today employs 52,700 employees, of which about 49,500 are technology professionals.

And all the new recruits to Infosys have to undergo a mandatory, intensive 14.5-week residential training-cum-foundation programme at the IGEC.

Here is a fact-sheet on IGEC:

• IGEC is a sprawling training centre, spread over 330 acres of land in Mysore.
• The centre was initially built to accommodate around 4,500 trainees at any given time and train 12,000 individuals in a year. Now that Infosys is recruiting employees in large numbers every year, it is planning to set up a new 9,000-seat training centre. With this new facility, Infosys would be able to train about 13,500 people at one time. Infosys is also setting up a 7,750-room facility to accommodate the trainees. The investment for expanding the IGEC facilities is around $150 million.
• Currently, the IGEC houses trainees in 2,350 rooms. It also houses 58 training rooms, 183 faculty rooms, a cyber café and a state-of-the-art library.
• The course material for the training programme is highly comprehensive, comprising presentations, assignments, learning guides, demonstrations, projects, quizzes and tests. This has been developed in-house by the Education and Research Department at Infosys.
• As of March 31, 2006, Infosys employs 181 faculty members at its training division, including 109 individuals who are doctorates or hold master's degrees.
• The faculty conducts integrated training for new employees, as well as approximately 240 different two-week continuing education courses in technology at different levels and management skills for all employees per annum.
• Some of the very highly specialised programmes are outsourced to institutes of high repute on a selective basis.
• Infosys's Mysore campus also provides fitness and recreation facilities to employees to encourage all-round development of the trainee. The Employee Care Centre on campus houses a gymnasium, table tennis and squash courts, a swimming pool, a bowling alley and a meditation hall. The campus also has an international-class cricket ground and a multipurpose ground with a 6-lane synthetic track, as well as basketball, volleyball and tennis courts.
• A multiplex with three screens and auditorium complex which will have a capacity of 1,300 seats, are also a part of the campus.
• Infosys has trained foreign students from various South-East Asian countries, including 100 each from China, Mauritius and Thailand at IGEC.
• The training programme for foreign students involves a three-month intensive training course on interpersonal and technical skills at IGEC, and a four-month internship at Infosys's development centre in Bangalore. The training programme concludes with students submitting a project report, a case study and taking a comprehensive examination.

The training centre and the programmes are all under the direct leadership of the new head of human resources and board member of Infosys, T V Mohandas Pai.

According to him, with three sessions a year, the company could train close to 40,000 employees annually at IGEC.

During the current year, Infosys expects to hire some 25,000 more employees, of which 60-65 per cent were likely to be freshers.

During the 2006 fiscal, Infosys screened a whopping 14.236 lakh (1.423 million) job applications and made offers to some 21,650 candidates.

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(Above) The Infosys Global Education Centre at Mysore.
Photograph courtesy: Infosys Technologies Ltd