Virtusa Partners with Local Universities to Upskill Technology Talent of Tomorrow’s Workforce

Chennai, February 15th, 2021: Virtusa Corporation (NASDAQ GS: VRTU), a global provider of digital strategy, digital engineering, and IT services and solutions that help clients change and disrupt markets through innovation engineering, held its sixth annual Engineering Academia Connect program, “HeadStart 2021,” in Chennai. Held virtually, noted Actor, Scriptwriter, Director, and Inspirational Speaker, Raja Krishnamurthy (aka Kitty) delivered the keynote address and moderated a panel discussion on “Emerging Trends in IT Industry.”

This year’s virtual HeadStart event attracted more than 300 educators from 150+ universities who discussed the current needs of the industry, highlighted opportunities and challenges, and announced the finalists of the “Jatayu Ideathon” hackathon competition. The speakers were joined by an audience of more than 1,500 students.

“Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) have proven their value over the last year while the business world was looking for new ways to remain innovative,” said Sundar Narayanan, chief people officer, Virtusa. “In this new normal, where companies are focused on balancing innovation and controlling costs, organizations need to continue upskilling the workforce of this changing corporate landscape. Virtusa’s technical competencies with leading universities across India and our Centers of Excellence are helping us hire top talent and prepare them to succeed. This focus on talent will lead to an overall improvement in the team member experience.”

This year’s event also included a panel discussion titled “Building Tech Talent for the Future.” Moderated by Mr. Raja Krishnamurthy, the panel included top officials from Virtusa who shared their expectations on the future skills and qualities the next generation of the corporate workforce will need to be competitive in the ever-changing corporate world. These qualities include having an open mindset to learn, a commitment to action, strong self-awareness, and a pledge to collaboration and social accountability.

Jatayu

The “Jatayu Ideathon” hackathon is an exclusive competition for third-year students, which gives them an opportunity to build an idea all the way from the envisioning stage to final product. The competition focuses on developing innovation for product servitization, digital wallet for connected things, intelligent edge, AI-based content moderation, and automation game testing in the manufacturing, healthcare, banking and financial services, insurance, telecommunications, media, and entertainment industries.

The “Niche Skill” teams were announced during the event. The teams include participants from the following universities:

• Vellore Institute of Technology Andhra Pradesh
• Vellore Institute of Technology Bhopal
• G.L. Bajaj Institute of Technology and Management
• Rajalakshmi Engineering College Chennai
• D.Y. Patil College Kolhapur

The top five teams will be given an internship to industrialize their product, and upon successful implementation, have the opportunity to win a cash prize of Rs. 100,000/-.

During the finale, students and academicians asked questions on technology trends, future skillsets, and how to groom the future workforce. Senior leaders from Virtusa discussed the rapid changes in technology and how important it is for institutions to keep pace with these changes. Executives also touched on the importance of having a strong collaboration of all stakeholders to groom the future workforce.