Industry-Academia Collaboration via Internships

IT industry in India has witnessed high growth in the last few years. This rapid growth has created human resource demand supply mismatch. IT industry is continuously on the lookout for fresh and young talents. While the campus recruitment of fresh graduates can provide the required numbers, it has been widely recognized that such recruits lack the skills which are essential for a successful career in the corporate world. Internship is proving to be a valuable approach of identifying talent early on, enriching their technical skills, nurturing them with the requisite domain knowledge, and subsequently hire them into the organization.This paper shares the experiences of the authors at First Indian Corporation (FIC) on establishing an internship model and leveraging it to meet the organizationpsilas strategic needs.