Focusing on bridging the skills gap in the IT industry and evaluating students’ skills that will enhance their employability, the EMC Academic Alliance (EAA) continues to develop the skill sets required in today’s evolving IT industry and form alliances with the country’s leading educational institutions to implement its programs.
EAA offers an “open-curriculum” education for students and courseware to faculty at no cost. A five-day, eight hour course, the program helps train the new generation of IT professionals to build a foundation that focuses on opportunities and challenges the megatrends of mobile, cloud, social and big data will be bringing over the next few years.
“Through the EMC Academic Alliance Program, we aim to help engineering graduates develop the required skill sets in leading areas of IT to make them industry ready. This is an important landmark for EMC and we look forward to a mutually beneficial partnership addressing the skills gap in the Philippines,” said Ronnie Latinazo, Country General Manager at EMC Philippines.
In the Philippines, EMC has forged academic alliances with a total of 100 universities and colleges since 2008, with De La Salle University (DLSU) as the first EAA partner and St. Paul University of Iloilo as its 100th Academic Alliance Partner that will be provided with Instructor Training, Curriculum, Teaching resources and course materials to enable the institute with expertise and knowledge in line with the latest industry trends.
EMC will also conduct four five-day instructor-led training programs in Cloud and Big Data for 120 instructors of St. Paul University in Manila, Davao, Iloilo, and Cebu in 2015.
“The EMC Academic Alliance Program is aimed at cultivating talent globally and we are working with the best universities and technology education institutions in the world. We are happy to extend our expertise in emerging areas of technology to students of St. Paul University who play a major role in the emerging IT sector in the country,” said Krishna Kant, Head of EMC Academic Alliance for South Asia, Russia and ANZ.
Kant claims that one of the most rapid adoptions of EAA program was registered in the Philippines. It is the first Southeast Asian country to have 100 EAA partner-universities. Globally, it is the fifth country to have 100 alliances.
To date, with 100 partner-educational institutions, the Academic Alliance has educated more than 1,140 students in the Philippines, and trained over 150 faculties in Cloud and Data Service. Worldwide, it has trained more than 300,000 students in leading universities located in over 70 countries since its inception in 2006.
Kant said that having a curriculum that changes every year, the number of EAA’s partner-universities in the Philippines will be doubled from 100 to 200 in about three years’ time.
Latinazo said that EAA training can become a major source for talent pool. “As more global customers continue moving to do business in the Philippines, the EAA training can be a source of IT talents needed by these firms.”
EMC also introduced the new EMC Academic Alliance Associate, a resume-enhancing recognition that demonstrate mastery of the course topics through a comprehensive exam created by EMC technical experts and administered by the faculty. The recognition, which will validate skills of EAA students in the high demand areas of Information Storage and Management and Cloud Computing, involves EMC’s evaluation to prove their skills and industry readiness in potential employers in the industry.
Besides, the recognition, which will be rolled out to all 100 EAA partner-institutes across the country over the year, also endorses the students’ skills to be at par with their global counterparts.
To be recognized as an EMC Academic Associate, candidates are required to complete a highly technical online test for free. According to Kant, the exam takes about 1½ hours and the passing score is 70%. Successful candidates will be awarded the EMC Academic Alliance recognition.
EMC Academic Associate is expected to benefit 2,000 students in the Philippines in 2015.
Meanwhile, being the first local university in the EAA, DLSU benefited from the alliance. According to Charibeth Cheng, Assistant Manager, Software Technology Department at DLSU, they implemented the EAA in their school in 2009 by identifying a faculty member who will undergo training. After the training, they identified in their curriculum the best that will be offered as a course. That time, the course they offered was Information Storage and Management.
Cheng said that based on the objectives of the degree program and the individual objective of the course, the materials available from the alliance both complement and supplement the objectives. “We have faculty members who have access to these courses. They get updated in the new technologies while the students were able to see industry-made materials and products. The teachings of the faculty became more enriched.”
