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NT Bureau
Chennai, Feb 22:

        In a joint effort, Confederation of Indian Industry, southern region (CII) along with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is organising the two-day 'iTalent' event in Chennai tomorrow.

        It's an unique event to identify and showcase the talent of IT students in developing Information Technology-related projects for industry applications. And TCS is the knowledge partner for the talent show.

        'iTalent' aims at giving the students an exposure to best-in-class competitive landscape, as well as an opportunity for the industry to have a look at the best of students from these colleges.

        It is pertinent to point out that a similar event last year had overwhelming response from the students and 424 final year students from 65 regional colleges submitted 151 concept papers, on IT related innovative projects. Seven top IT companies including Alcatel, CTS, Servion, Sify, TCS, Wipro and Verizon issued 349 letters of Intent to the contestants for placement opportunities with their organisations.

        As far as this year is concerned, iTalent has attracted 484 final year students from 66 regional colleges, who submitted 173 concept papers, on IT-related innovative projects. A total of 119 teams were shortlisted for second stage. Of which, 30 teams comprising of 83 students were finally short-listed for on-stage presentation of their proposals on 23-24 February 2007 at Tidel Park Auditorium.

        The individual contest such as aptitude test, IT Quiz and Point of View for the 484 contestants will be conducted during the final event. Dr L S Ganesh, HoD, Management Studies will conduct the individual round.

        Added to this, there would special sessions such as HR Talk on 'Uncertainties of a Fresh IT Professional Joining the Ocean', Captains Panel on 'Innovation: Are We Getting There?' and Alumni iChat (professionals from lesser known colleges who have made to the top IT companies).

        Sreeram Iyer, chief executive officer, Scope International (P) Ltd, Subhash Bana, managing director, Alcatel Development India, Sheshadri Venkatesan, head, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Thomas Simon, chief manager, HR, TCS Ltd and David E Nallathambi, head, Alcatel India Development will participate in the HR Panel and address the delegates.

        K Ananthakrishnan, CTO, TCS Ltd and Ushasri, senior managing director, IT GDC, Cisco Systems (I) Pvt Ltd will be the panelists at the Captains Panel.

        The valedictory session will be addressed by P K Mohapatra, deputy chairman, CII (southern region) and president and chief executive, Technology Business Sector, RPG Enterprises, Vinay L Deshpande, chairman, education sub-committee, CII and president and CEO, Encore Software Ltd, S Padmanabhan, executive vice president, TCS Ltd and Prof S V Raghavan, IIT Madras.