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Jochelle.Mendonca@timesgroup.com

Mumbai: French information tech-nology firm Capgemini aims to beatindustry growth estimates for the fis-cal year beginning April, on expecta-tions of a rise in demand for IT servic-es in markets such as North America.The National Association for Soft-ware and Services Companies, India’sIT industry lobby, has projected indus-try growth in FY16 at 12-14%, whichwill translate into an addition ofabout $20 billion (about .̀ 1.2 lakhcrore) in incremental revenue.

But Paul Hermelin, CEO and chair-man at Capgemini, has set his sights onhigher growth. “It’s a good number, butI have set a higher target for my team,”Hermelin said during a panel discus-sion at the annual Nasscom India Lead-ership Forum in Mumbai last week.

Capgemini has been investing in In-dia for the past few years – both as a de-livery centre and as a market – as itlooks to compete on a more even play-ing field with Indian IT providers.Capgemini has over 50,000 employeesin India, which it plans to ramp up to70,000 by 2016, but the mix of hiringwill be different.

“About 40% of the hiring will stillcome from campuses, but the rest willbe lateral hires,” Aruna Jayanthi,CEO at Capgemini India, told ET.

Lateral hiring is becoming increas-ingly important in India as digitalservices are beginning to gainground and there are fewer peopleavailable in companies with theready skills. It is also becoming morecompetitive as startups, global in-house centres and IT companieschase the same scarce talent.

“Hiring laterally has always beencompetitive, but the final trigger forsomeone to choose to work for a com-pany is the kind of work, thoughthings like culture of the firm alsohave an impact,” Jayanthi said.

Automation will also likely changewhat the IT work-force looks like inthe futue, Jayan-thi said. “A lot ofthe repetitivetasks will be auto-mated, as clientsare asking for 30-40% productivityimprovementsover the life of, say,a three-year con-tract. So, the tradi-

tional pyramid may not look thesame in the next two-five years, wethink the base will definitely nar-row,” Jayanthi added.

Indian IT firms havealways worked on thepyramid model – withthousands of low-paidfreshers forming thelargest chunk of theirworkforce. But increas-ingly, companies havebeen talking about dif-ferent ways of structur-ing their employees.

Wipro and HCL Tech-nologies have been look-

ing at developing a more hour-glassmodel, ET has previously reported,while some smaller IT firms, such as

capital markets-focused Synechronhave a diamond structure.

“It may be challenging for companiesto look at automation (because of thehit to the top line), but I think it is clearthat companies that do not build thesecapabilities will become less relevantto their customer,” Jayanthi said.

The company is also thinking aboutinnovation differently than some ofits Indian competitors, especiallyaround investment in startups.

“We do have a programme around in-novation, but we are not that aggres-sive right now with startups and it'stoo early to say whether that willchange,” Jayanthi added. Infosysmade its first investment from a $500-million investment fund into aDreamworks spin-off.

Capgemini Aims to Beat Industry GrowthEstimates for FY16, Step Up Hiring Here

Nasscom hasprojectedindustrygrowth inFY16 at12-14%

Peerzada.Abrar@timesgroup.com

Bengaluru: Infosys co-foun-der and billionaire NandanNilekani, who spearheadedthe country’s massive uniqueidentification project, is gear-ing up for an equally ambi-tious project – to help elemen-tary school children acrossthe country improve theirreading and arithmetic skillsusing low-end tablets andsmartphones.

Nilekani is launching a so-cial enterprise, Ek Step, andhas roped in technologists andformer colleagues at UniqueIdentification Authority of In-dia, Pramod Varma and VivekRaghavan, and data analyticsfirm Marketics co-founderShankar Maruwada to be partof his team, people familiarwith the development told ET.

“Primary education re-mains an unsolved problem inthe country and that is whatNandan (Nilekani) wants tosolve,” one of them said.

An e-mail query to Nilekanito share insights about the ini-tiative remained unansweredas of press time on Sunday.

Education entrepreneurs andexperts said there is huge needto focus on the basic educationskills like reading, writing andarithmetic. “Nandan has an ex-cellent track record of doingthings at scale,” said K Ganesh,a serial entrepreneur. “He isthe best person to take such aninitiative on an enormous scaletouching millions of people.”

Ganesh, who sold online tu-toring firm TutorVista to UK’sPearson for .̀ 1,000 crore threeyears ago, runs online higher

education firm Avagmah.Reading and arithmetic

skills are part of early stagedevelopment. By the time achild is 10 years old, 80% ofbrain development has al-ready happened.

“Technology can also helpbring accountability amongteachers,” said Rajeev Pathak,co-founder of eDreams Edu-soft, a Bengaluru-based startupthat uses artificial intelligenceand natural language process-ing technology to provide auto-mated personalised tutoring.

Accountability among teach-ers is a big issue in govern-ment schools in both rural andurban India. “Nilekani has adeeper understanding of howto make system work in gov-ernment,” said Pathak whosetechnology is being used by50,000 students in 125 village,town and city schools.

Experts, however, said tech-nology alone cannot solve In-dia’s education problems andteacher intervention is cru-cial. “Technology should firstcreate stickiness with teach-ers before reaching to stu-dents,” said Sundi Natarajan,

chief of strategy at Tabtor,which helps students learnand solve problems on tablets.Tabtor can recognise hand-writing and records the stepstaken by students to solveproblems. It alerts the tutorwhen a student is stuck.

Natarajan said use of tech-nology in education shouldguarantee the learning out-come by measuring it, even ifthe student is learning at aslow pace.

Dev Kumar Roy, founder ofBengaluru-based FitKidsEducation, said it will betough task for Nilekani. “Edu-cation is a tougher problemthan sending engineers to docoding or body shopping,” hesaid. FitKids provides sportsas well as science, technology,engineering and math educa-tion for children from Kinder-garten to grade 12.

Nilekani is not the only Info-sys cofounder trying to solvethe education problems in thecountry. Samhita Academy, acity school launched five yearsago by Infosys co-founder SDShibulal and his wife Kumari,works on a unique model,.

Project banks onsmartphones, tabsto boost readingand math abilities

Nandan Nilekani’s Ek Stepa Giant Leap for Education

ANIRBAN