CSS Corp, an IT services and technology support company, and ICT Academy, a not for profit society, together sign an MoU to launch an extensive training program to skill the youths of urban, rural, and low income families in Tamil Nadu. Through this initiative, CSS Corp aspires to build better socio- economic conditions of underserved students with quality education and IT training. The program has been launched at an inaugural event held at Sri Sairam Engineering College in Chennai.

Speaking about the initiative, Manish Tandon, CEO, CSS Corp, says, "One of the major challenges for the IT industry is re-skilling the present and future workforce to bridge the demand-skill gap. CSS Corp has been consistently institutionalizing a culture that promotes learning newer technologies and solutions to embrace the current disruption. This year, through our CSR initiative, we look forward to imparting the skill expertise that we have curated to deserving students through quality education and proper training. We are privileged to partner with ICT Academy to design a program that will effectively empower students of Tamil Nadu to be truly future ready."

According to NASSCOM, the demand-supply gap has led to an urgent need to re-skill over 50 percent of India's IT workforce to meet the requirements of the

industry. This has indeed led to lack of employment, especially for entry level jobs. The association of CSS and ICT intends to fill this gap by providing sector specific training and workshops that would increase the employment opportunities.

The training program would be conducted in 20 colleges across Tamil Nadu. The program has been planned as an activity based training in soft and technical support skills for over 1000 final year graduate students from engineering, arts & science colleges located in the rural and urban areas of Tamil Nadu. Furthermore, the module also includes business communication, grammar, vocabulary, hardware & networking, operating systems, wireless technologies, and career counseling. All these would be presented by the professionals, who possess industry expertise. Final year students from Computer Science & IT stream, who have average score of six CGPA until the last semester can apply for this program. CSS Corp volunteers would monitor the training program, and would mentor the student and also conduct mock interviews & group discussions.

The program has been designed to support the students hailing from financially backward families with an annual income less than or equal to Rs. 2.5 lakh. A special preference would be given to the female candidates, during the selection process in check with the CSS Corp's objective of empowering more women in the technology sector.

M Sivakumar, CEO, ICT Academy says, "CSR comes as a big boon for the underprivileged and the development of rural India. We at ICT Academy, being a not for profit organization continued partnering with several leading companies across India for implementing their CSR objectives in the areas of employability, skill development, youth empowerment, capacity development of teachers, digital empowerment, entrepreneurship development, literacy initiatives and women empowerment. Thanks to CSS Corp for coming up with such a high impact initiative under their CSR. Through this partnership with CSS Corp, ICT Academy being the skill development institution is delighted to train the students on latest technology skills and increase their opportunity to acquire a good job in the industry. This is a welcome initiative by CSS Corp, and I believe this would make a positive impact to the beneficiaries' family as well as the industry by bridging the skill gap".