Fostering problem solving through innovative knowledge events

This paper focuses on fostering problem solving skills of learning community through innovative knowledge events. Engineering institutions are the natural bedrock for Information Technology (IT) talent in the knowledge economy. As India moves towards becoming a true global leader in IT, these institutions and the IT industry have realized the need to scale up industry-ready quality students to meet the growing demands of the industry. However there are impediments which cause a disconnect between the demands of the IT industry and the skills of fresh engineering graduates. Infosys Campus Connect (CC), a first of its kind Industry-Academia interaction program launched in May 2004 understands that institutions require active collaboration and support from the IT industry to realize common goals, as a primary stakeholder in creating a vibrant talent pool of future engineering graduates. CC aims at aligning the needs of institutions, its faculty and students, with those of the IT industry. CC has launched Aspirations2020 - a contest series that fosters creativity, teamwork and innovation in building new software programs and enable students to test their ability to perform under challenges, which is quite typical of an Industry environment. This contest series has convergence with the Association for Computing Machinery's international collegiate Programming Contest (ACMICPC). This innovative knowledge events program has hardwired execution excellence in demonstrating competencies needed to be global engineers. This paper is about how effectively the technology has been leveraged to promote developing problem solving abilities to engineering students through Aspirations2020.