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IEEE Boston GOLD African Students MentorNet
African Engineering Students to Receive Mentoring from IEEE Boston GOLD
[Also available on IEEE Boston GOLD website]
Members of IEEE Boston GOLD are very excited to announce a mentoring program it has developed to assist engineering students in Africa working on their undergraduate senior (final year) projects. This project is poised to help the students access a pool of experienced professionals who are practicing at the cutting edge of science and technology. The mentors will guide the students, providing important directions as they work with their local universities or polytechnics on their projects. Only projects that involve electrical, electronics, computer engineering and related fields will be supported.
This service is completely free. We emphasize that the goal is to help the students develop skills with directions on how to approach some engineering problems. Members of GOLD will not be solving their problems for them. The support could range from helping to design a circuit to developing a test strategy.
Interested students are asked to send a two page free application, describing their projects and what they will need from us. Upon receipt and approval, the project will be assigned to one of our members whose skills and interests align with the students projects. Through email and video communication, the mentor and the student will work together as the former helps to direct the latter.
This program will be administered by the African Institution of Technology and technically driven by the IEEE. It will run as a pilot project from August 2010 to August 2011 and will be continued, if necessary.
About IEEE: IEEE is the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community through IEEE’s highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities.
About African Institution of Technology (AFRIT): AFRIT is a technology focused non-profit organization with the aim of facilitating emerging technology diffusion in Africa. It has organized more than 35 engineering workshops and seminars in the continent.
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African Engineering Students to Receive Mentoring from IEEE Boston GOLD Members
Infosys Targets Mysis for Acquisition As US Growth Stalls
We reported earlier that many Indian companies are looking for growth opportunities outside US. This has so far resulted in the rumored interest of Infosys in the soon-to-be-sold Mysis. Amidst the current bout of speculations regarding a possible takeover bid for Misys plc, Jefferies & Co. revisited its long-held view that it is now in the final phase of the value realisation project that Mike Lawrie and ValueAct Capital embarked upon four years ago.
“We think the remaining two divisions are likely to be sold. We see upside of at least 20 percent from current levels and reiterate our ‘Buy’ rating,” said Milan Radia, an analyst at Jefferies.
Radia said Misys has fully separated its core banking and capital markets divisions, perhaps indicating its willingness to sell these divisions separately. In the absence of a full bid, Misys will, in the analyst’s view, seek to sell core banking first.
The Indian vendors, Infosys Technologies Limited are obvious candidates, in Radia’s view, given their strength in banking software. This assumption is based on the information emanating from Infosys indicating that they are on the lookout for acquisitions with a cash chest of more than $3.7 billion, and has an appetite to acquire companies that could go close to a billion US dollars, its CEO-designate SD Shibulal said.
“We can easily absorb acquisitions that are around 10% of our total revenue base of $6 billion, but if need be we are ready for bigger acquisitions as well,” the co-founder who is due to be elevated from the chief operating officer’s position,” said in an interview recently.
He said the company, which is mainly looking at building competencies through buyouts, was eyeing a deal size of between $300 million and $900 million. “As and when the opportunity (for acquisition) comes the cash available with us would come handy.”The Bangalore-based giant has so far been conservative in buyouts while its cash chest has been growing since last year.
HTC To Launch HTCdev.com And Open HTC Sense To Developers
HTC Sense mobile user interface has a new developer program. This was announced in the recently concluded Qualcomm Uplinq event. Through this program, HTC will make available HTC OpenSense SDK with the APIs, plugins, sample code and libraries to develoers. This is going to be like what Google does with Android where developers get the SDK and kits they need to develop on the platform. They will have toolkits and toolsets with players like Linkedin, Picasa, among others joining this program.
While introducing this, HTC CEO, Peter Chou, noted that developers can use the HTC tools to enable them make their apps better. This is how they explained the program on the development site.
We know that, by supporting your ideas, the benefits customers get from our technology can increase exponentially. HTCdev is designed to give you the inspiration to explore the possibilities within the HTC platform, the support you need to develop your ideas, the platform you need to promote your applications and the forum to connect with other developers and with HTC. Through tools, tutorials, blogs and events, HTCdev is dedicated to helping you get the most from your talent and potential. And we can’t wait to get started.
The program will be launched this summer on the HTC development website: HTCdev.com
Why HTC Sense?
HTC Sense is more than a user interface – it is a holistic experience that is focused on improving how people live and communicate. For developers, it’s the perfect platform to make your ideas a reality.
The New Entrepreneurial Waves in Africa – Harvard Business Review
Early this month, Cisco announced that it was investing $10 million in Egypt. What made it different from other investments by multinational companies in Africa was that the network equipment maker structured it as a venture capital investment, not a donation. The beneficiaries will be small businesses that provide innovative products, services and solutions. Right now in big African cities, technical college graduates are experiencing a new dawn. Gone were the days where careers were… More »
Indian Giant, Infosys, Acquires New Zealand’s Gen-i
India’s second largest software exporter Infosys Technologies has announced that it has acquired the software solutions business of Gen-i, as part of its partnership with the Telecom New Zealand Group firm. As part of the deal, Infosys has offered positions to Gen-i’s more than 110 employees and contractors, who will continue to be based in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch, Infosys said in a statement.
These employees, who are primarily senior developers, technical architects and consultants, will take the Infosys’ New Zealand team to over 150 people, it added. The company said it also plans to immediately hire an additional 15-30 people there. No financial details were however disclosed.
The partnership will be undertaken by Infosys’ Australian arm and Gen-i, the corporate ICT arm of Telecom New Zealand. The current software solutions management team will lead New Zealand delivery for Infosys, with Patrick Kouwenhoven running New Zealand operations under the leadership of Infosys Associate Vice-President Ashok Mysore.
The companies will offer IT services like IT consulting, business transformation and cloud-based offerings to Australasian companies. Australasia is a region of Oceania comprising Australia, New Zealand, the island of New Guinea and neighboring islands in the Pacific Ocean.
The partnership is said to create a new market proposition for local businesses by helping them to transform for competitive advantage, with new ways to innovate, reduce costs and increase the effectiveness of their people, processes and technology according to Infosys.
As near-shore delivery from New Zealand is among the joint growth strategies being planned, the partnership also has significant potential to further grow New Zealand-based technology jobs, it added.
Gen-I currently works alongside its 3,300 corporate, government and business customers to offer integrated ICT solutions. It has nearly 3,000 highly skilled people in 17 locations across New Zealand and Australia. “There has been a lot of consolidation in the IT services market recently, leaving an opportunity for a strong local partnership which can deliver world class capabilities in hosted and integrated ICT solutions,” Gen-i Australasia CEO Chris Quin said.