HCL ties up with Horizon campus to provide IT training to youths
Human capital is the most successful investment in a country for development and Sri Lanka is the first country to be introduced with HCL technology following the launch of it in India about three years ago, said Srimathi Shivashankar, Corporate Vice President of HCL Technologies, at the launch of the TechBee project held at the Taj Samudra hotel in Colombo this week.
“We have hired 500 plus people in Sri Lanka during the past six months and is buoyed by the opportunities the country has to offer and we look forward to business operations in the years to come. We are thankful for the Board of Investment (BOI) for the support given to the HCL for nation building activities as envisaged by the government policy on development. HCL hopes to provide the impetus for businesses to engage in global trade due to rapid change of technology. Candidates who undergo one year training and apprenticeship will be absorbed to the company as software engineer/analyst. HCL has also tied up with the Horizon Campus in Sri Lanka for the students to follow a degree programme in IT to enhance their education. Funding for degree programmes for students to pursue higher studies will be provided by HCL,” she said.
The “TechBee- programme” of HCL’s is aimed at early career programme to train and hire young students to build a skilled and employable talent pool in
Sri Lanka.
The company aims to provide 3000 jobs in Sri Lanka within the next three to five years and these jobs are largely for Application and Product Development, Digital Technologies Networking, Cloud Solutions and infrastructure Services. HCL was recently ranked 30 by Forbes as one of the World’s Best Employers for 2020 as the top employers in the world.
Chairman Horizon Campus, Malabe, Upul Daranagama said that Horizon was set up in 2008 in Malabe as a transnational educational institute to run international degree programmes and Diplomas. Subsequently in 2014 the Ministry of Higher Education awarded Horizon as a degree awarding university status. “We offer degree programmes to local students. We were the first university to be listed in the Commonwealth hand book and offer ICT, Management, Science degree courses and our latest addition is the technology faculty. We have close to 3000 students following different disciplines,” he added. Elaborating further he said plans are afoot to expand the capacity of the university by building another block on a 25 acre plot to accommodate 3000 students. The total cost of the project will be Rs. 5 billion. Chairman BOI Sri Lanka, Sanjaya Mohottala also participated at the launch.