Wednesday, 10 August 2011

University of Malaya students chosen to pilot Cisco Industrial Training Programme







A total of 35 undergraduate students from the University of Malaya have been picked to pilot the Cisco Industrial Training Programme (CiTP), an undergraduate internship programme developed in collaboration between Cisco and the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC).
The programme, currently in its pilot phase, hopes to establish an undergraduate internship programme to identify and train skilled information and communications technology (ICT) networking specialists for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The chosen interns are third-year computer science undergraduate students at the University of Malaya who are currently undergoing the Cisco CCNA curriculum and have an excellent academic record.
Cisco will prepare the interns through an intensive two-week training programme where they will learn business soft skills to complement their technical knowledge.
At the end of this training, students will be assigned to an SME in the MSC Malaysia (formerly known as the Multimedia Super Corridor) to manage and maintain the company´s ICT and networking environment for six months. These participating SMEs would be appointed by MDeC and 30 companies have been identified.
Cisco Malaysia´s managing director, Anne Abraham, explained that there were two main goals for CiTP -- equipping students with real-world business experience and providing expertise that can provide strategic business and technology contribution to participating SMEs.
"The interns will be exposed to and work on resolving real situations in a live work environment, often regarded as unique in IT requirements and challenges. The programme would certainly accelerate their learning curve and experience, and eventually cultivate a higher-quality talent pool for the ICT workforce," she said.
"On the other hand, CiTP provides SMEs with the opportunity to realise and reap the benefits of having qualified networking interns and the right talent managing the organisations´ network, systems and business."
The preliminary training prior to the placement in June will begin in May where a panel of experts will induct the interns on applicable and useful strategies, technologies, solutions and soft skills for SMEs.
"While we are setting the standard for a rounded internship programme, and the success of CiTP will determine the scale of implementation moving forward. Eventually, our ambition is to take it further, widen the opportunity, and establish it as an ideal model not only for our peers in the ICT sector, but also across industries in the market," Abraham added.

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