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Following are excerpts from televisionpoint.com’s report.

 Mumbai based Zee Interactive Learning Systems (ZILS) is looking at its child care division, Kidzcare, as a major growth-driver in the years to come. …

Arun Khetan, CEO, ZILS said, “The franchised childcare centres, Kidzcare, are geared to meet the gap in proper existing childcare programmes. We will be setting up a total of 35 Kidzcare centres in this financial year.”

According to Khetan, the demand for these centres is mostly from the IT and BPO crowd. “Thus, the Kidzcare centres will mostly come up in places like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Mumbai, Pune and Chennai.”

ZILS has plans to add another 70-75 centres in the next fiscal, while the target by 2011-12 has been set at 500 centres. The company expects Kidzcare to contribute about 25% to its turnover within the next five years. The Kidzcare concept operates on the franchisee model. The cost of setting up each centre ranges between Rs 10 lakh to Rs 45 lakh, not including the premises.

Following are excerpts from a New Indian Express report on this.

Taking its ‘Campus connect programme’ a step ahead, Infosys BPO on Monday launched ‘Project Genesis’ here to train lecturers on BPO skills for raising the employability potential of students in the ITES sector.

The project has achieved a resounding success in states like Karnataka, Maharashtra and Rajasthan and helped students not only gain employment in Infosys, but develop confidence in their abilities. Since its launch in October 2005, Infosys BPO has worked with more than 1,000 lecturers in 360 colleges in these states and trained more than 12,000 students.

The project would be extended to Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu apart from Orissa this year.

Launching the programme, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik urged Infosys BPO chairman Mohandas Pai, present on the occasion, to start a BPO unit in the State. “We are open to the idea but we would first seek to build a pool of skilled professionals in the State and test their skills before coming up with such a centre,” he said while talking to mediapersons later.

Pai also evinced keen interest for a second campus in the city with the provision of SEZ status. The existing campus, which clocked Rs 570 crore in export last fiscal, would soon touch its full capacity with 4,500 employees.

Project Genesis would train 300 teachers from both government and private colleges from across the State. It would focus mostly on imparting language enhancement techniques and analytical skills, key attributes for BPO industry. On completion of the fortnight-long programme, the teachers would groom the students. Each student would have to pass through three tests. The programme would be be held periodically.

Pai said, Infosys plans to recruit several thousand students from the State in the coming years and engage actively in strengthening academic collaboration with colleges. “We would also tie up with universities for systematic intervention in updating course curriculum.”

He announced that Infosys would be funding a chair in the upcoming IIIT campus here for computer science with a corpus fund of Rs 1 crore.

July 22 2007 Update: Thanks to the readers for the correction and the extra information connecting Aricent and Hughes.

Kalinga Times reports that Aricent, a global communication software company, will open a development center in Bhubaneswar. Following are some excerpts.

Global communications software company Aricent on Friday announced its decision to open a Development Centre in Bhubaneswar.

The company will also set up a Global Training Centre in the State.

Manoranjan Mohanty Mohapatra, president and chief operating officer of Aricent, made the announcements at a meeting with Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here.

According to an official release issued by the Chief Minister’s Officer, the Development Centre of the company will have 1200 employees.

The Global Training Centre will have provision to impart training to 1000 students. Subsequently, the student strength in the centre will be increased to 3000 . …

A more detailed report on this is here.

Odisha.com reports on this.

Earlier news mentioned about IBM expanding to or eying various tier 2 cities including Bhubaneswar. Economic Times now reports that the center in Bhubaneswar will be a development center. Following are excerpts from that report.

IT major IBM will soon open its third development centre in Orissa’s capital city. …

Sources said TCS, Infosys and Satyam already had their centres here while Wipro, Mindtree and Hexaware were expected to decide on their plan soon. Genpact had already committed to invest at Infocity-1, the state government’s IT cluster. …

The IBM team, on its part, assured the state government that they would provide technical know-how for Orissa’s ongoing e-governance programme.

Brain has also assured Patnaik that IBM would help the government to develop the proposed Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) in Bhubaneswar.

IBM already has two centres, one in Chennai and another in Coimbatore, the sources added.

Statesman reports on an IBM Center in Bhubaneswar. Following is an excerpt.

IBM is likely to establish a development centre in Bhubaneswar. A release issued by the CMO here said that indications to this effect were given by Mr Stephen W Braim, the vice-president, IBM Asia Pacific, today. Mr Braim met chief minister Mr Naveen Patnaik and discussed IT development and human resource development to meet the growing demand of such professionals. IBM has two development centres in the country and the one proposed to come up in Bhubaneswar will be its third centre, said the release.

Some of the other topics that were discussed in the assembly include the following:

• Insurance for fishermen
• Monthly electricity generation
• Progress on second Infocity
• Foreign demand for handlooms
• Conservation of ancient documents

Following is Samaja’s report on the above.

New Indian express reports that multiplay service will be introduced in Cuttack-bhubaneswar metro unit. Multiplay basically involves having a framework which will provide multiple services under a single network. The list of services include voice, data and internet protocol television (IPTV) services under one package. Once connected, the subscriber can avail various services like cable TV, phone, high speed internet and even watch videos on demand through a set top box acquired on hire or outright purchase basis. Following are excerpts from the New Indian Express report.

The public sector telecom company has firmed up plans to introduce its next generation service “Multiplay” in the Twin City as soon as it is able to cement association with content providers.

While the infrastructure is being spruced up to required levels, the company has sought expression of interest (EOI) from private content providers for the tie-up. …

According to Deputy General Manager (IT), BSNL Orissa, PK Chand, Multiplay would offer voice, data and internet protocol television (IPTV) services under one package. Once connected, the subscriber can avail various services like cable TV, phone, high speed internet and even watch videos on demand through a set top box acquired on hire or outright purchase basis.

And as the system takes roots, other features like gaming, TV-based education, audio, T-commerce, video telephony and personal video digital recording can be included in the wide array of interactive applications.

BSNL has commercially launched the Multiplay services for its broadband customers in Pune in March this year in collaboration with the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited and Divinet as content provider.

Besides data, internet and voice services, IPTV and video on demand have been launched in the initial phase.

More than 100 free to air and pay channels are provided under the IPTV platform while the video on demand enables one watch movies of his choice at his own convenient time.

This is one of the pioneering technologies which underlies the potential of bhubaneswar as a desitination. Even cities like Bangalore and hyderabad dont provide this facility at this point…

IBM does a lot of business with SMBs (small and medium businesses) in India. Thus it plans to expand its operation across India. Various news reports mention that it has plans to expand to 14 tier two cities. It has already started at Coimbatore and Goa, will start with Lucknow, and then follow it up with Bhopal, Nashik, Nagpur, Surat, Bhubaneswar, Jamshedpur, Jaipur, Ludhiana, Dehradun, Vizag and Madurai.

Business standard reports that the Orissa government is after Accenture and other big IT consulting companies. There is nothing concerete here except that its a policy decisions to go after these biggies with an attractive package. Following are excerpts from that report.

The Orissa government is rolling out the red carpet to get the management consulting, technology services and outsourcing firm Accenture to set up facilities in the state. …

Orissa IT minister Surya Narayan Patro said, “We have initiated discussions with Accenture.”

A top official of the Orissa IT department said, “The government would leave no stone unturned in bringing in big companies like IBM, Cognizant and Accenture to the state. Discussion were on and the government would contact Accenture.”

The Orissa government was working out a package offering excellent infrastructure to companies keen to invest in the state.

Accenture currently had 1.5 lakh employees in 49 countries with global revenues of around $18 billion, and was one of the largest computer services and software companies.

India was an integral part of Accenture’s global delivery centre (GDC) and its second largest country of operation, with branches at Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai and New Delhi employing 15,000 professionals in India.

The Orissa government recently allotted 1074 acres of prime land for three IT zones labelled Infocity 1 to 3. While Infocity-1 was functional, Infocity-2 and Infocity-3 were
under planning and development. TCS, Infosys and Satyam had units here while Wipro, MindTree and Hexaware were expected to decide on facilities in Bhubaneswar soon and Genpact had committed to invest at Infocity-1.

Orissa expected software exports to cross Rs 1000 crore from the 2006-07 export figure of Rs 734 crore.

IT small and medium enterprises (ITSMEs) in Orissa were working on a plan to take up software exports. Currently there were about 135 IT firms registered with the Software Technology Park of India (STPI) in Orissa.

Following is a roundup on HRD related postings at orissawatch.org.

• Foundation For Excellence (FFE) gave 264 scholarships to students from Orissa
• Orissa engineering colleges in Outlook India ranking
• NISER deadline for submitting application form is extended till June 15 2007
• Chennai B-school in Bhubaneswar and Plan for Insurance University in BBSR
• Specialized government management institutions of Orissa
• Branch changes allowed after first year at NIT Rourkela
• Status of private Medical Colleges in the State
• M.Tech and M.Arch programs in Orissa
• KIIT has approval for 100 Medical (MBBS) and 100 Dentistry (BDS) seats.
• Institutions with Nontraditional programs – a dated list
• Biju Patnaik Film and TV institute advertises for admission into its programs
• Apparently Orissa students are doing well in medical entrance exams
• Tathya: Please no politics over IIT
• Pursuing M. Ed in Orissa
• Ranking of Engineering Colleges in Orissa based on student preferences
• Nursing Schools catch on in Orissa
• TCS recruits 1100 students from Orissa engineering colleges

Financial times reports that TCS has hired around 1100 students from Orissa. The primary colleges were ITER, CET and KIIT. As the paper rightly remarks, Orissa is emerging as a major talent pool for IT recruitment. This should be used as a platform by the IT ministry in the state to request other big companies to set up units in the state.

As a side note, KIIT has made tremendous progress in the last few years . It jumped around 65 places in the all India ranking (done by Ooutlook magazine) to 37.

TOI reports that Infosys has logged out of Bengal due to High land rates. This news coupled with the fact that Infosys plans to increase it’s headcount to around 5000 in next few years makes Bhubaneswar it’s biggest hub in east India.This projects good growth prospects for Orissa.

Tathya reports that an IT SEZ has been approved that covers major part of Infocity. Following is an excerpt from that article.

The IT nerve center of Orissa is centered at Infocity, a sprawling 300 acres of Export Promotion Industrial Park developed by IDCO north of Bhubaneswar.

Infosys and ESSPL have set up their development centers.

TCS, Wipro and MindTree have signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) and have taken land in Infocity.

Other prominent IT companies including Genpact, Hexaware Technologies, Ramtech Software Solutions and Contiloe Films have also applied for land.