Gaining expertise

Being an engineering student and having imense enthusiasm for an IT-related field that you fancy, can take you a long way, courtesy Microsoft’s Student Partner Programme. This is a concept that awards recognition to select students of engineering colleges, especially those who are well-acquainted with the field they have chosen. Through this a student gets selected as a Student Partner and is able to interact with and gain knowledge from the best in the field of technology.

“I was nominated for Microsoft Student Partner Programme along with three other students from the computer and IT department of my college after it entered into an academic alliance with Microsoft. We had a training session at the company’s Mumbai office and based on the interaction they had with us, they selected me as one of the Student Partners. This was the first time this programme was introduced in COEP and I was invited to this programme officially on February 22, 2007, along with a fellow student,” relates Shaizeen Aga, Microsoft Student Partner, College of Engineering, Pune (COEP).

It started in 2002 in India under the name Student Champ. Here the objective was to fill the gap between experts working on a particular technology and the students who wanted to learn more about that technology. “The student partners come in here and are fundamentally the point of contact. Microsoft approaches the colleges and helps the faculty identify the students who can pick up technology fast, and once chosen, these student partners receive training in the technology related to their area of expertise,” explains Siddharth Prakash, Microsoft Student Partner Lead, Pune Institute of Computer Technology, (PICT).

From time to time, the company conducts training sessions for Student Partners wherein the latter interact with professionals employed in various IT firms, after which they go back to their respective colleges to share the know-how. There is also a portal, www.student-partners.com for colleges that are not approached by Microsoft. In either case, there are levels of filtration through which the selected student are assessed. “Our primary duty is to spread awareness about Microsoft Technologies in our college. We do this by first learning these technologies ourselves and then taking sessions in our respective colleges. It is a non-profitable programme and the student does not get any salary out of it,” says Ashish Jain, Student Partner, Bhartiya Vidyapeeth University, College of Engineering.

As COEP has an academic as well as campus agreement with Microsoft, each and every student gets access to many of Microsoft’s academic softwares free of cost . “We also organise academic DEVCON (Developers Conference) each year for students as well as the professional community in Pune. Being a Student Partner has really helped me increase my technological knowledge greatly. The interactions, which we occasionally have with Microsoft professionals, are really useful and have given me a platform to spread awareness about technology, which is different from our normal syllabus,” adds Shaizeen thrilled about the add-on knowledge she is receiving even as she does her engineering course.

Source: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Gaining-expertise/231157/