On the subject of reading academic papers, I have a PhD from one of the most “prestigious” schools out there – highly mathematical stuff. I actually try to read the latest in programming language literature (a subject I have a fairly active interest in). I cannot read any of the literature anymore. The academic and the practicing industrial worlds have long disconnected, with very occasional and rare exceptions – and in those cases, they do write fairly practical, accessible papers.

In the US, Computer Science enrollment at the undergraduate level has plummeted 50% int he last 10 years. Have you thought about why? I content increasing levels of abstractions in academia has something to do with it.

If AdventNet engineers (and the AdventNet CEO!) are going to have a problem that they cannot understand most academic literature in Computer Science, well, it is an honor they will share with much of the industry.

I believe those who are interested will learn the abstract or useful stuff by them self. There is a mythical belief that going to college adds value & gives the necessary skill.

This interview from a recently passed out engineering graduate captures this well ( it is a old post but still relevant to this discussion )

http://blog.yuvisense.net/2006/12/09/interview-with-sriram-krishnan/

Mani.

Great post and, personally, I’m very impressed by your approach to training.

Forget about them being Arhcitects, Wirpo has few non-technical guys as managers handling mid-large teams and I only pity the “Engineers” working for them.

What you’re doing is creating an army of programmers, whose careers will be stunted after 10,15 years at the most. Sure, they can be “retrained” on the latest, coolest scripting language, the latest platform, etc. How long will it sustain them? Will they ever climb the ladder to meatier roles? Will they be trusted to architect products and services, to design user interfaces? Will they know how to design scalable infrastructure? Will they even be able to read academic research or industry experience papers and bring that learning to bear in their jobs?

If it’s any consolation, you’re hardly alone in this approach. Training institutes all over India (NIIT, Aptech types) have been churning out programmers for years now… We’re now starting to “discover” the limits to what they can accomplish. Not everyone can get a pure computer science education, but a proper engineering background at least is essential to ensure a successful 30-40 year career.

As far as I know, AdventNet pays 5,000 INR ($USD 120) in a month for the recruited employees via other colleges. You do not pay them as they are not from good colleges. In South India every one is an engineer with engineering colleges being sprouted up everywhere like mushrooms. And yes, after 1 year you make them perment with salary I guess upto 10K/12K INR ($240 USD – $260 USD). I guess in the US, even street sweepers earn more than that.

Honestly, it seems to be exploitative – even considering India, with per capita income of $950 USD (in a year, and I think that is the number). Yes, you do pay well to candidates from good collges.

With all due respect, Sridhar, this model is going to work only in Chennai or many parts of Southern India (I guess it is where your office is located) as engineers are churned like a B grade movie flick. And not everyone needs to be do hard core programming, neither in an application like ZOHO (not to take away the credit of its being good) you do not expose them as a Sun or Google do via APIs or even if you do they are not going crash a NASA satellite launch.

Nevertheless, as long as India can not feed its children, your efforts are really commendable and it is really a great humanitarian effort.