Month: August 2012

The IIMs have announced the notification for Common Admission Test (CAT)2012 on 22nd July. CAT 2012 will be held during the 21-day period beginning October 11, 2012 and will go on till November 6, 2012. Last year, CAT was conducted from 22nd October to 18th November. This time, the exam has been advance by 11 days, to keep as many festivals as possible out of the test window. IIM Kozhikode will conduct Cat this time. Prof. SSS Kumar will be CAT 2012 convenor.

CAT 2011 was conducted by IIMC, with Prof. Janaki Raman Murthy as the convenor. CAT 2010 was conducted by IIM Lucknow with Prof. Himanshu Rai as the convenor. IIM Ahmedabad conducted the first online CAT in 2009, with Prof. Satish Deodhar as the convenor. CAT is a pre-requisite for admission into the following programmes of the IIMs:

1) PGP: Ahmedabad, Trichy, Ranchi, Rohtak, Udaipur, Indore, Kashipur, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Raipur, Bangalore, Calcutta, Shillong.

2) PGP-ABM: Ahmedabad, Lucknow

3) PGSEM: Bangalore

4) PGPPM: Bangalore

5) EPGP: Indore

6) PGDHRM: Ranchi

7) FPM: Ahmedabad, Kashipur, Indore, Kozhikode, Bangalore, Calcutta, Ranchi, Lucknow, Raipur, Shillong, Trichy.

Registration for CAT 2012: Any Graduate with minimum 55 percent marks can register for CAT 2012. The registration window opens on July 30, 2012 and will be open till September 19, 2012. You can refer to the CAT registration Guide available on www.catiim.in for detailed info on how to register.

In what is regarded as the ‘Olympics’ of computer programming professionals across the globe, two Indian teams from IIT Delhi and IIIT, Hyderabad, have outperformed their predecessors and advanced their rank to 18 in the final rounds of ACM-ICPC (the world’s largest International Collegiate Programming Contest).

“This is the first time in the history of the competition that an Indian team has secured a position within the top 20,” exclaimed Mr. Bhavin Turakhia – Founder & CEO of Directi (the leading internet products company) that launched ‘Go for Gold’ three years ago. ‘Go-for-Gold’ is a non-profit initiative that enables Indian programmers hone their intricate technical skills and provides an impetus to their creativity and teamwork while competing with the best programming wizards across the globe.

Currently in its 36th edition, the ACM-ICPC is a prestigious, international competition, run by Baylor University, USA, and the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), a society of more than 96,000 computing educators, researchers, professionals, and students worldwide. This year’s finals, held in Warsaw- Poland witnessed participation from over 8,000 teams selected from 2,219 universities in 85 countries.

Exuding confidence, Nikhil Garg, one of the participants representing IIT Delhi, said “We are really delighted to have advanced India’s rank on a global platform. India is known to churn a large pool of engineering graduates every year. However, Indian students are yet to make a mark at a global level due to lack of adequate training and excessive reliance on theoretical knowledge in comparison with our global counterparts. Directi’s ‘Go for Gold’ and their ‘CodeChef’ platform have helped us test our skills and interact with peers in the industry. “

According to a recent report by Aspiring Minds on national employability in India, even though India produces five lakh engineering graduates every year, employability with regards to Indian IT services is around 17.45 %. The number falls down even more, when it comes to Indian IT product companies- to a dismal 2.68%.

Mr. Bhavin Turakhia concluded, “India has always been a hot spot for software development, with our software strengths being well entrenched. While this is true, Indian programmers haven’t yet made it big, compared to the talent from Russia, China, USA and Germany who are the ‘preferred’ choices at a global level. Having said that, the next phase of growth in the Indian IT industry is hence, a major concern, and an evolved set of skills is required to drive this growth. ‘Go for-Gold’ is an attempt to boost the programming talent in the country by providing appropriate training. Collaborations between organization and educational institutes will also ensure support to the upcoming Indian software developers and help India make their mark.”

The ACM-ICPC draws participation from the crème-de-la-crème of the programming community across the globe. Last year 103 teams throughout the world participated in the world finals.