EMC the world leader in information infrastructure solutions, today announced that the Indian Institute of Information Technology, Bangalore (IIIT-B) has signed an agreement with EMC (Benelux) B.V. SARL, a subsidiary of EMC Corporation, to join the EMC Academy Program (EAP) in India. Under this program, IIIT-B will offer a course in information storage technology to its second year post graduate students from July 2007.

As part of the EMC Academy Program, IIIT_B will receive vendor agnostic curriculum, course content, learning materials, faculty trainings and software simulators developed by EMC, to provide training to their students.. EMC will also provide program support in terms of examination papers and sample assignments. As part of EAP, EMC has forged alliances with over 45 education institutions across India, and today, more than 1,500 students are enrolled in similar information storage and management courses across India as part of the EAP.

The EMC Academy Program is an initiative by EMC to work with the leading educational institutes around the world to address the emerging knowledge gap in storage technologies and developing a resource pool of trained and certified storage professionals. This is the only program in the industry which offers a vendor neutral, product agnostic storage technology curriculum to the students.

Commenting on the significance of the association, Professor Sadagopan, Director, IIIT Bangalore said “There is a paradigm shift of power from carrier to content and the key issue to be recognized is the importance of putting the information back to center stage. Information has to be recognized, organized and consolidated so that organizations can get maximum value out of their information. We are happy to partner with the world leader in information infrastructure. The agreement with EMC will enable our students to learn about information management and storage, one of the most significant and also the fastest growing segments with in the IT industry.”

“We are confident that the partnership with EMC will help us impart best-of-breed skill and training to our students and produce industry ready graduates that are prepared to contribute to the fast growing information management and storage industry,” he further added.

Elaborating on the need and success of EAP in India, Manoj Chugh, Country Manager, EMC India & SAARC region, said, “There is a dramatic increase in the average storage capacity in every organization and only a marginal increase in the number of storage related IT professionals. IDC projects that information will grow at a CAGR of 57 percent between 2006 and 2010 and APAC excluding Japan will grow 30 to 40 percent faster than the mature economies*. We are proud to partner with IIIT Bangalore, one of the premier technology institutions in the country. Our partnership with IIIT Bangalore is a significant step forward towards addressing the emerging storage technology gap and developing a resource pool of trained storage professionals in the country.”

“We are extremely satisfied with the progress of our education program in India and are on track to achieve our target of signing up to 100 institutions by 2010. Since the launch in April 2006, there has been an overwhelming response from students and industry at large,” he further added.

On successful completion of the course, students will receive a certificate from IIIT Bangalore and EMC certifying that the student has successfully completed the program. All certified students will be better prepared to clear the EMC Associate Storage Technologist Examination, the world’s most recognized information management and storage certification exam.

*According to the IDC whitepaper: “The Expanding Digital Universe: A Forecast of Worldwide Information Growth Through 2010”.