Significant Opportunities Exist for FOSS-based IT Employment

Trivandrum, Kerala, 24 June, 2011 - The International Center for FOSS (IC-FOSS), an autonomous institution of the Government of Kerala, is undertaking training of students and faculty of Kerala University on FOSS-based statistical tools, with the objective of tapping requirements for Business Analytics professionals in the IT Industry. The first Industry-Academia interaction was organized on 16 June 2011 at the Kerala University campus at Trivandrum, on the theme "FOSS Tools for Business Analytics", jointly with Dept. of Statistics and Quantilez Inc. IC-FOSS intends to hold similar programs in other areas such as Big Data, Electronic Medical Records, and 3D modeling.

Significant opportunities are emerging for FOSS-based IT Employment, in both niche and mainstream markets, according to Satish Babu, Director of Kerala Government's International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (IC-FOSS). He was inaugurating the Industry-Academia Interaction on the topic . He said that in order to utilize these opportunities, it was important to upgrade the technical capabilities of human resources in Kerala, through programmes imparting the use of state- of-the-art tools and technologies, for University graduates and other trained sections of the workforce.

Kerala has a head-start in using and propagating FOSS-based tools and applications, with the first FOSS event held in July 2001 in Thiruvananthapuram, when the concepts and practice of FOSS was introduced into India for the first time. Since then, Kerala has made significant strides in using FOSS in the Government, public sector, and education, he said.

The seminar on FOSS-based statistical tools was the first among several technology verticals that IC-FOSS was organizing, under its broad strategy of promoting Kerala as the prime destination for high-end IT work using FOSS-based tools and technologies.

Mr. K. Balachandran, CEO, Quantilez Inc, a company based out of Glendale, California, and with its India office at Bangalore, felicitated the event. He said that Business Analytics was a fast-growing niche segment that offered good prospects for high-end statistics-based work. He said that there was currently a shortage of trained human resources in this area. He also said that FOSS-based statistical tools were now mature enough to handle such work, and that they had the added attraction of being extremely cost-effective. Kerala, with its prior exposure to Open Source, was in a good position to leverage this market niche, according to him.

Dr. P. Yageen Thomas, Head, Department of Statistics, Kerala University, welcomed the participants at the meeting. He pointed out that it would be good to have follow-up programmes in advanced use of FOSS tools in collaboration with other universities in India in order to build expertise in Kerala. Dr. E. Abdul Sathar, Department of Statistics, Kerala University, proposed a Vote of Thanks.

The programme was attended by about 100 persons including faculty members, IT professionals, and students from different institutions under the University of Kerala and Technopark.

IC-FOSS, an autonomous institution of the Government of Kerala established in 2010, has the mandate of carrying out academic & research programmes and advocacy centred around Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and fostering international co-operation in the FOSS domain. A secondary focus of IC-FOSS is to promote Kerala as a destination for FOSS-based IT work through creating a critical mass of trained human resources and providing mechanisms for market interfacing. Currently operating out of Technopark, IC-FOSS aims carry out joint programmes with state & central Governmental institutions as well as with international agencies. IC-FOSS is to set up its International Campus near Trivandrum shortly in order to fulfil its vision of being a world-class academic and research institution in FOSS.

Satish Babu
Director,
International Centre for Free and Open Source Software (IC-FOSS)
7th Floor. Tejaswini,
Technopark, Trivandrum -695581
Kerala, India

This release was published on openPR.