Elements Akademia debuts in Chandigarh

Chandigarh, June 30
There is no dearth of jobs, yet youth are unemployed. The factor of employability needs to be inculcated in youngsters.
This was felt at a seminar, organized by Elements Akademia, on making youth employable today. Elements Akademia - conceptualized, funded and run by a group of 15 IIM Alumni - is India’s first chain of finishing schools aimed at bridging gap between academic theory and industry requirements, thereby making graduates employable.
A panel of eminent companies and academia of Chandigarh discussed the issue. Mr. Satish Bagrodia, National President, PHD Chambers of Commerce & Industry inaugurated the seminar at PHD Chamber for Commerce and Industry, Sector 31 A. Ravinder Kakkar, Center Director, Elements Akademia Chandigarh delivered a welcome note.
Mr. Nishant Saxena, CEO, Elements Akademia, revealed that there are 6 million new jobs every year in service sector but only 2.5 million graduates. “There are jobs for everyone. Despite whopping number of 6 million, organized sector employs only 13 percent of them. We need to introspect on this and it is here that role of Elements Akademia begins,” he said.
He added that India's service sector is booming but faces an acute skilled manpower shortage, despite the presence of a large graduate pool. A part of the malady is perhaps in our university education system, which offers degrees but often fails to make graduates "employable".
Elements Akademia aims to bridge that gap by offering 6 months part-time vocational course designed with the help of our corporate partners, who are leading players in various service sectors like Insurance (MNYL), BPO/KPO (Genpact), Retail (Reliance), Banking (KMB) etc. This prepares graduates in tier II cities for entry level Jobs in the booming service sector of India like insurance, kpos/bpos, banking, retail, telecom, hospitality etc.

Saxena said that vision is to annually make 10,000+ Indians employable - reaching out to non-metro cities to attract students, train them (on a curriculum designed with our corporate partners, some of the world's best companies in their respective sectors), and then help them get placed in our partners and beyond.
The talks focused on drastic mismatch between Industry skill requirements and kind of stuff our academic institutions teach. Brain storming session on ways to arrive at a short-term and long-term solution to actually make the youth employable was held.
Mr. Satish Bagrodia, National President, PHD Chambers of Commerce & Industry and Mr. TPS Walia, COO Tata Tele Services (Punjab & HP Circle) spoke on requirements of corporate looking for qualities when they hire people.
Mr. Vinay Sharma, COO Elements Akademia presented the research findings on key skills corporates look for in new recruits.
Dr. A K Saihjpal, Diector, UIAMS, Punjab University summed up the talk pointing that how today’s youth “focuses less on employment and more on employability (and is therefore) driving a privatization of skill development.”
Principals and students from major degree colleges of Chandigarh, besides senior executives from top companies and government representatives participated in the symposium. Delegates (directors of 30 Chandigarh colleges) presented their views for a minute each.
This was part of a series of symposiums that Elements is organizing across the country to deliberate on the burning issue of youth employability.