Sridhar Vembu of Zoho talks about training and hiring young professionals whom others disregard

Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho, talks about his efforts in India to develop a 21st Century workforce, working with kids who only have a high school education, no previous computer experience and who can't afford college, yet his company can train them for IT jobs in 9-12 months. He offers insight into fast-tracking kids using concrete, hands-on instruction that gets them solving problems and doing real work.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• sridhar vembu
• zoho
• institutes of technology
• training
• it
• computer science
• education
• dale dougherty
• make
• oreilly media
• foo

[ashitkvora]

Nice interview but I kind of disagree with some of the points Sridhar mentioned.

1. He said, Math is not very important in real world software development.

I dont agree with this. It depends on what kind of software you are developing. For eg. Artificial Intelligence software requires heavy Calculus, Graphics programming requires heavy Trigonometry.

Also, the more maths you do, more logic, problem solving ability you will gain.

[perfwill]

You're great, Sridhar, I think it's a new and innovative kind of education we gonna develop for the 21st century ^^

[rachakou]

India needs you Sridhar!

[perfwill]

@ashitkvora yes, it depends, but when you have the skill to self-teach, you can learn anything, no matter how hard it is, math is not an exception ^^.

[lifesutra]

This is brilliant! Let's keep business aside for a while, and consider Zoho's actions from a social service point of view. This is such an innovative approach to transforming the lives of students from low income backgrounds! These guys have been so quite and humble about it... I think that the success of their hiring experiment deserves international recognition.

[amanpshigh]

Very well done Mr, Sridhar you have hit it right on target.. Making a programmer productive rather than just getting him piece of paper(Degree). And the other very valid conclusion u have made which is 101% correct. In most of the computer science profession maths is not as much used as it is hyped and certainly in college syllabus emphasis on maths is clearly over-hyped... Hope your mission is successful.

[japscatty]

A very noble and a very practical approach, I have to disagree with ashitkvora here as of the 1 million odd Software professionals (I dont call them engineers) how many actually model artificial intelligence or do graphical operations which requires Trigonometry?

Most of all work Infy Wipro and TCS can be done by the high school students