IBM has announced the establishment of 75 new Centers of Excellence (CoE) at engineering colleges across 60 cities in India. In 2009 too, IBM set up over 75 such CoEs across the country and the announcement will take the total number of CoEs around the country to 150 by end-2010. These new CoEs will be spread across 20 states and will be selected from the top 300 engineering colleges in the country.  

The IBM CoEs are aimed at creating a platform for the development of software skills among the students and also gives them the opportunity to acquire new skill sets around IBM software as well as help them develop world-class business solutions.  

In addition to extending high-quality education on emerging technologies through these CoEs in colleges, IBM also plans to bring its Global Entrepreneurship Initiative (GEI) to some of these colleges. This initiative helps start-ups capture new business opportunities by providing access to technology resources from IBM.  

“Apart from providing training, certification and software which is free of charge to these colleges, IBM plans to take the CoEs to the next logical level of converting them into Incubation Centers, to bolster software skills and ensure industry-ready professionals. Under this concept, the company aims to work towards creating a bridge between the industry and academia by creating a program where industry can use the CoE set up and the certified resources in the college to create innovative software projects and proof of concepts,” commented Himanshu Goyal, Country Manager - Academic Initiative, Developer Works & Globalization, IBM India/South Asia.