Major IT companies hail the female workforce through different diversity programs in the corporate world. HCL Technologies embarks on a road less traveled, foraying into the campuses to accelerate the gender representation. Aiming at increasing the current 23 percent women workforce in the company, it has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with six colleges in Chennai through its GoPro –‘Campus to Corporate’ program. GoPro comprises of a series of programs and will serve as a bridge to the corporate world for the final year students from a number of Chennai and Madurai based women’s colleges.

The initiative would aid inculcate, hone, and develop the best of qualities and capabilities for ‘tomorrow’s professionals’ to face the corporate challenges and environment. Successful women from the industry would be invited to share their experiences with students to motivate the budding engineering talents. The program imparts knowledge about the professional do’s and don’ts and brings about cultural sensitization. As the industry is going more global with every passing day, the program will help them learn the qualities which will help them to interact and communicate effectively with global customers. A training module has been designed for soft skills which include tips on communication, etiquette, attitudinal and behavioral skills, cultural sensitization, and self-branding. “We are expecting this innovative program to be very beneficial to our students as well as help the teachers in updating the curriculum to meet the industry needs,” says Dr. M. Thavamani, Principal, Ethiraj College for Women. HCL Technologies recruits an average of 800 people per year from the campus.

As a part of the program the company would be setting up ‘Technology Labs’ to facilitate students’ training and research work and would introduce a ‘Faculty Enablement Program’ for the faculty as well and enable them to interact with experts in different areas of technology. This initiative will greatly help those colleges that do not have access to technical labs. This year, HCL provided opportunity to 400 students to have a hands-on experience by doing their internship in HCL’s labs.

One of the training modules brings in experts from the industry to talk on creating IP and patents and how to commercialize them, as the awareness about IP and patents is minimal among the students.

In addition to the strategic tie-ups with engineering colleges, HCL establishes tie-ups with women’s arts and science colleges also to achieve closing the gender gap.