I.About India Skills IndiaSkills is a joint venture between Manipal Education and City & Guild, UK. Drawing upon City & Guilds’ expertise in developing qualifications that are reflective of global industry needs, its 130 years of leadership across 30 industry sectors and 600 qualifications that have certified over 18 lakh learners every year, IndiaSkills is poised to change the dynamics of the Indian market. Learners are provided with cutting-edge, industry-relevant certifications and job assistance. Multiple levels of qualifications are available at the entry, supervisory and managerial levels, opening up opportunities for lifelong learning and growth. While learners get a head start in their career, partner companies get easy access to trained, ‘work-ready’ staff. For the industry as a whole, this translates into a job-ready work force with ‘first day first hour’ productivity. Manipal Education With over six decades of experience and a global presence, Manipal Education is one of India’s foremost education service providers. With a wide reach and a large spectrum of activities, the group is functional in a number of schools, as well as university campuses in India and abroad. Manipal Education also equips youngsters with industry-relevant skills training. With its world-class curriculum and some of the finest teaching methods, Manipal Education provides a wide variety of educational opportunities. Its strength in delivering distributed education gives a significant fillip to IndiaSkills’ vision for vocational education in India. II.Why India Skills? Skilled people are the backbone of a growing economy The Indian economy is growing at a fast pace. Service sectors such as retail, hospitality, banking and industries, such as auto and construction are witnessing rapid growth. This growth has spurned a huge demand for skilled manpower, right from entry to specialised levels. The National Skills Development Commission has estimated the need for about 3 crore trained manpower over the next five years. III.CEO Hari Menon Hari Menon is the CEO of IndiaSkills, a joint venture between Manipal Education, a leading higher education provider in India, and City & Guilds, UK’s largest provider of work-related assessments and vocational qualifications. Set up with the aim of redefining skills training and certification delivery in India, IndiaSkills has made rapid advancements under Hari’s able and dynamic leadership. Under his visionary leadership, IndiaSkills, has within a year of operations, forged strong relationships with over 20 leading industry players such as Reliance Retail, Shoppers Stop, Café Coffee Day, Bata and Madura Garments among others. He has been instrumental in launching industry-endorsed programmes in a range of sectors spanning retail, hospitality, Banking and Financial Services, security and hair and beauty. Over 15,000 employment mandates with these leading companies and sectors are now available to learners through 40+ IndiaSkills vocational training centres in eight states across India. This has given the company a head start in achieving its aim of being present across the 30+ industry sectors that City & Guilds represents, and reaching out to a network of over 500 VTCs spanning 50 per cent of India’s districts by 2014. An alumnus of BITS Pilani, Hari started his career with ORG Systems, moving on to work with many of the best and most respected names in the country, including TVS Electronics, Wipro Infotech and Integrated Data Systems. Prior to taking up this role, Hari headed the Professional and Skills Education initiative of Manipal Education, which provided skill-based education and training across India in sectors like banking, retail and media and entertainment. Before his entry into the education sector, Hari co-founded Fabmall—a pioneer in internet and grocery retail—where he handled a gamut of responsibilities including strategic business planning, raising venture capital, building organizational capabilities and creating a strong IT platform for the retail business. Prior to Fabmall, Hari headed Programme Management at Planetasia.com, where he oversaw large-scale project deliveries involving a wide team of software developers, business analysts, web designers and web writers. Hari’s wide exposure in these multi-faceted roles, and later, in Manipal Education’s training and education space has placed him in a unique position to guide IndiaSkills towards making a significant contribution to the skills development sector in India.