Youths at the conference. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, Aug. 30: Smart and suave with a flair for English — this is how the information technology industry perceives the youth of the Northeast.

The country’s biggest IT body, Nasscom, today rolled out its plans to tap the youth power of the region, which has an abundant talent pool of English-speaking boys and girls.

Over 20,000 youth from the region will sit for the National Assessment of Competency (NAC) test by Nasscom, which is considered to be the first step towards employment in the BPO and IT-enabled services sectors.

The IT industry expects nearly three lakh graduates to appear for the NAC test by 2009.

The first of the series of tests will begin in the third week of September and continue till December. The tests will be held at different centres across the region.

The announcement, made by Union minister of state for commerce, Jairam Ramesh, on behalf of Nasscom, was greeted with thunderous applause by the youths in the audience during the inaugural function of NICT 2007 here today. Assam Governor Lt Gen. (retd) Ajai Singh graced the session.

“The initiative taken by Nasscom will give the youths of the region a chance to test their skills and plan their careers in the IT industry,” Ramesh said.

Nasscom president Kiran Karnik said the association is “selling new locations” like Guwahati and Shillong to the captains of the IT industry and added that the response “has been good” so far.

Referring to the presence of the Union minister and the governor at the conclave, Karnik said, “We (the IT industry) interpret this as a tremendous show of support from both the central and state governments”.

Sandhya Chintala, director of Nasscom’s education initiatives, said NAC was an industry standard assessment and certification programme that aims to transform a “trainable” workforce into an “employable workforce”.

Nasscom, which has labelled the test as the passport to a BPO career, is trying to build the NAC test as a benchmark for the IT industry, on the lines of SAT, GMAT and GRE examinations.

Chintala added that for job aspirants, the test provides many benefits, including “a common, transparent process across companies in the ITES-BPO sector, end the trouble of going through the same recruitment process at different companies and an opportunity to get certified at the national-level”.

The DoNER ministry, with help from the state governments, will play the role of facilitator in conducting the test.