25 years ago, to be precise, on July 24, 1991, from a centralized economic planning India took a U-turn and launched its massive economic reforms. Popularly known as Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization (LPG Model), the new economic policies set a stage for fundamental mind shift and transformed the country forever. There was one thing that has been changing dramatically since the reforms in 1991 - India's Information Technology Industry. From $150 million in 1991 to more than $5.7 billion in 2000, the IT Industry bubbled with an annual growth not sliding below 50 percent. Indeed, IT in India was not just a boom, but a trend that all businesses had to embrace unfailingly to sustain and expand. It was evident that the industry would turn extremely demanding and the need for quality manpower will far outweigh the supply. This inspired and instigated N Keshava Raju, Founder and CEO, IIHT Group of companies, then a 21-year-old Electronics and Communication Engineer, to incept IIHT (Indian Institute of Hardware Technology) Ltd., a pioneering institute in hardware and networking IT (IMS) training.

"It was clear that IT would dominate the future across businesses and we started with one center in Bangalore," says N Keshava Raju. Today, IIHT is a training powerhouse with over 150 centers spread across 20 countries and a preferred choice for corporate training with over 250 corporate companies, out which many are amongst the Fortune 500 category. The best in the business attest to the IIHT education delivery and a partial clientele list of the institute comprises Accenture, HP, HCL, Wipro, Infosys, TCS, Tech Mahindra and others. IIHT has become a reputed name in international markets where they work actively with individuals and corporate alike. "Our success stories are not just about business growth, but the lives we have touched by true talent transformation. Today, the scenario is that there is ample opportunity, but little employability, and we are here to address the equation", claims N Keshava Raju.

With a rich legacy of 23 years, IIHT is perhaps the only pure play IT training company and pan-India learning group with training opportunities across all emerging technologies such as Social, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud. The associations with large number of corporate companies give IIHT a distinct exposure to inculcate real-time industry requirements into the curriculum making it highly hands-on and almost equivalent to on-demand learning. "The differentiating point of our service is that we give all our stakeholders an edge over their competition. Our courses are not merely technology-specific. A lot of research and effort goes into making the courses job-specific and role-specific", opines N Keshava Raju. The job-oriented courses that IIHT provides comprise Infrastructure Management, Networking, Web Application Development, Digital Enterprise Server Management, Big Data, Cloud Computing and many more. These feature-rich courses are built by an in-depth analysis of dynamic evolving trends in the IT marketplace and the changing demands of the discerning recruiters.

While, IIHT has a wide array of courses, on an average, about 6,000 students undergo training at IIHT worldwide every month. The major highlight of all IIHT courses is the curriculum that has been developed based on industry exposure. The course content has a high level of detailing which leads the students toward better prospects with respect to recruitments. "While our clients could imply students, graduates, working professionals, knowledge-seekers, job aspirants, corporate or even home makers, we have custom designed offerings for each segment with an irresistible value proposition", explains N Keshava Raju.

The institute has deployed blended learning models where students are exposed to multiple methods of learning such as self-study, instructor-led, virtual instructor-led and hands-on experiential learning. Along with, there are assignments and assessments on technical, practical and soft skills to help prepare the student for the real world job. Apart from the central placement assistance that is being guided by team of highly qualified professionals, IIHT has placement cells in different zones, which connect to opportunities in every potential segment. The institute also has a dedicated placement portal for its students - jobexchange.iiht.com, which is a platform for IIHT students to connect to prospective recruiters and vice versa. This stance has been much appreciated by the recruiters, students and the industry as a leadership move. "Packages that the students receive from here are based on variety of influencing factors such as academic achievements, interview-facing skills, technical expertise, communication skills, recruiter demand and more. Some of the offers made to talented fresh graduates have been to the tune of over 6 Lakhs per annum", claims N Keshava Raju.

Having trained about 15 Lakh students over the past two decades, the in-depth expertise in training based on jobs in the market has borne results to all IIHT stake holders. While expansion is key, IIHT is looking to firm its position even more strongly. There are many educational institutions looking to join hands with IIHT since the academic curriculum alone does not ensure employability. On the flipside, recruiters are looking to IIHT to source and deploy specific job-ready talent. In the middle, IIHT is playing a significant role by bridging all the stakeholders on one common platform. "We have our footprints in 20 countries with about 150 centres globally. Now, we are on an aggressive expansion drive to partner with like-minded associates who share our vision to take forward this enterprise into the next growth wave", concludes N Keshava Raju.

N Keshava Raju, Founder and CEO

Keshav is a visionary entrepreneur in the field of education who is responsible for the inception of IIHT way back in 1993. Keshav is a qualified engineer in electronics and communications. His knowledge, vision and commitment have led IIHT to create a niche in hardware and network training across India and far beyond. IIHT is a leading technology training institute in Asia and Africa and now has its presence in over 22 countries across the world. IIHT has never looked back, under his leadership, and is all set to conquer new milestones.