London, UK and Bangalore, India - June 5, 2014:
Wipro Ltd. (NYSE:WIT), a leading global Information Technology, Consulting and Outsourcing company along with UKIERI (UK India Education and Research Initiative), today announced the successful completion of its ‘India Gateway’ Internship programme 2013, for UK graduates and university students. The graduates were felicitated with certificates marking the completion of the internship at a valedictory function in Bangalore. The top performers of the graduating batch were offered positions with the company.
The nine month long programme, supported and jointly funded by UKIERI was conducted at Wipro’s facilities in India. The Wipro India Gateway Internship Programme is aimed at making students employable in the IT sector across the globe through a mix of classroom and practical training. Candidates are selected following rigorous tests in problem solving and business communication skills.
The 2013 programme comprised of three months each of classroom training (Project Readiness Programme), work shadowing and on-the-job experience. Guided by dedicated mentors at Wipro, the interns gained valuable experience in areas such as user experience design, mobile application development & support and data analytics.
Saurabh Govil, Senior Vice President - Human Resources, Wipro Ltd. said, “The business and technology models in the IT sector are constantly evolving. With the advent of the SMAC technologies (social, mobility, analytics and cloud), university computer science courses need to keep pace with the demands of the industry. Our India Gateway internship programme is aimed at bridging this gap and increasing the overall size of the employable talent pool for the IT industry in the United Kingdom. It not only offers valuable work experience to the participants, but it also provides an opportunity for them to experience a new culture and develop the business and technical skills necessary to successfully collaborate in a globalised work environment.”
Wipro plans to replicate this programme for engineering students in the forthcoming academic year in the UK. UK-based students with a strong academic record and background in science, technology or mathematics are eligible to apply for the programme. They also need to be engineering graduates or should be completing the engineering degree in the same year as the commencement of the internship.
Maddalaine Ansell, Deputy Director in the International Knowledge and Innovation Team at the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said, “The UK Government is committed to supporting programmes on enhancing mobility and strengthening India-UK links. The UKIERI India Gateway Internship Programme is important as it provides an enriching opportunity to UK graduates as they embark on their careers and gain valuable experience in an emerging economy like India.”
"The rewards from this internship have been immense. Despite not knowing how to program initially, I am now comfortable with most of the concepts in programming and the importance of coding standards and testing thanks to the input and support from the faculty, mentor and my peers. I have learnt how to work on tight schedules thus improving my time management and organisational skills. Lastly, the programme has increased my cultural awareness and appreciation of the Indian work culture in the context of globalized work environment," said Ferdinand Ade Nsoh, M.Sc (Information Technology, Management and Organisational Change) from Lancaster University Management School who successfully completed this internship.
Wipro also runs internship programmes in South Africa, Germany and the Nordic Region to build local talent pools in those regions.
About UKIERI
The UK India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) started in April 2006 with the aim of enhancing educational links between India and the UK. The initiative is working towards developing programmes that meets the priorities and needs of both India and the UK and bring about a systemic change in the educational sector of both India and the UK.
UKIERI is a multi-stakeholder partnership programme supported by the UK through the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, British Council, Department for Education, Scottish Government, and Welsh Government, and by India though the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department for Science and Technology, Ministry of Labour and Employment, University Grants Commission and All India Council for Technical Education from India respectively.
About Wipro Ltd.
Wipro Ltd. (NYSE:WIT) is a leading Information Technology, Consulting and Outsourcing company that delivers solutions to enable its clients do business better. Wipro delivers winning business outcomes through its deep industry experience and a 360 degree view of "Business through Technology" - helping clients create successful and adaptive businesses. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, a practitioner's approach to delivering innovation, and an organization wide commitment to sustainability, Wipro has a workforce of 140,000 serving clients across 61 countries. For more information, please visit www.wipro.com.
Media Contacts:
Vipin Nair
+91 80 39916260
vipin.nair1@wipro.com
Gitanjali Sreepal
+91 80 39918018
gitanjali.sreepal@wipro.com
UKIERI Media Contact:
Megha Sunger
UKIERI Secretariat
+91 9873920259
megha.sunger@britishcouncil.org
Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements
Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. We may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward-looking statements, including statements contained in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf.
