17-year-old Chandrasekar honored with MTech from IIT

It is going to be a milestone for S. Chandrasekar tomorrow. Two years back Chandrasekar at 15, who became the youngest engineering graduate in the country, will be the youngest postgraduate from IIT Madras when he receives his degree at the convocation. September 25, 1990 born teenager tops in the class, says Times of India reports.

It is a family friend, who discovered the boy’s inquisitiveness and picking up things very quickly. So they thought it would be interesting to put him in an international certificate program. Thus at 11 years, Chandrasekar became the youngest Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer and Cisco Certified Network Associate. In August 2002, Chandrasekar was appointed an honorary director of the Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council Center of Relevance and Excellence in network engineering.
In 2002, an Anna University committee, headed by Vice-Chancellor Dr Balaguruswamy, assessed the boys capabilities and decided to admit him into the BE program, which he cleared when he was 15. He then took the Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering and scored 99.32 percentile, which left no room for academics at IIT-M to have second thoughts about admitting him into the MTech course.

“The best thing about him is his consistent performance. When he is interested in something, he pursues it with great commitment and purpose,” says Subramanian. BE was not very tough.

“In the first semester the environment was new, so I had a little difficulty both academically and psychologically. But Dr Thangaraj, now Vice-Chancellor of Kalasalingam University, gave me a nice home-like atmosphere, and after the first four or five months there was never a problem, says Chandrasekar.

Chandrasekar’s father R Subramanian, an auditor, “Chandrasekar was a precocious child, according to his parents. His teachers used to complain that he would finish his work quickly and disturb other children, so we asked them to give him some books to read after he finishes work so he doesn’t trouble the other children.”

Courtesy :- SiliconIndia

India undisputed leader in offshore services: Gartner

India remains the “undisputed leader” in a list of the top 30 countries for offshore services prepared by IT market research major Gartner Inc.

The research firm based in Connecticut, US, applied a list of 10 criteria to find its top 30, but many of the conclusions are already well known – India is the “undisputed leader” in offshore services, with China, Russia and Brazil providing credible alternatives, while Ireland, Israel, Northern Ireland and South Africa are strong in language skills.

According to Gartner, however, there’s a stampede of new locations determined to get more offshore business. For the 30 countries that met its criteria, Gartner reports, another 35 were viable contenders, giving companies plenty of choices in 2008.

And of those 35, 13 “came darn close to making the list”, according to Helen Huntley, an author of the Gartner report prepared in December 2007.

Those coming “darn close” are Colombia, Guatemala, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico and Venezuela in the Americas; Indonesia, Mauritius and Thailand in Asia-Pacific; and Belarus, Egypt, Latvia and Morocco in Europe, Middle East and Africa, or the EMEA region.

The aim of the Gartner study was not to rank each country but to help sourcing managers determine which locations are right for their particular needs, Huntley said.

“There are risks and rewards to any part of the world you go to, and everything from service delivery to concerns about security and language to consider,” he said.

The seven countries from the Americas are becoming or already are attractive destinations for US companies, but a lack of government support is restricting offshore development, Gartner said.

Only Mexico rated “very good” in this area, followed by Canada and Uruguay. Canada and Mexico rated higher than Brazil in the quality of the labour pool.

In terms of infrastructure, think twice about Argentina, the only country to rate lower than “good”. Canada earned excellent marks in most categories, except in the big rate limiter: cost.

The Asia Pacific region boasts the most countries in the top 30 list – 10. India rules, with China at its heels.

Asia has also come a long way in language skills. Only China, Sri Lanka and Vietnam rated less than “good”.

As for government support, Gartner said this was strong in China, India and Singapore.

The rest of the countries are a “mixed bag” of pluses and minuses. Australia, New Zealand and Singapore, and an increasingly proactive China, rate high on infrastructure and educational systems.

Vietnam leads the pack on cost, earning an “excellent”, while China, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Sri Lanka rated “very good”.

Not surprisingly, cost and risk correlate tightly: the higher the cost, the lower the risks. Vietnam, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam scored either “fair” or “poor” in the category of political and economic environment.

The established EMEA countries generally score high on educational systems, infrastructure and language, either because of their high English-speaking population or because they offer other useful language skills.

No country earned higher than a “good” in government support.

Only Russia rated a “very good” in quality and quantity of labour pool. Newcomers like Slovakia and Romania scored well on cost, but costs in the EMEA region in general are in flux, Gartner warned.

The EMEA countries are also parochial; with the exception of Russia, few countries have a network of local service providers outside their own country, it added .

Courtesy :- EconomicTimes