In a sign of India's IT revolution percolating to China, an Infosys professional who was involved in spread of soft skill based education with management and leadership development programmes has been conferred "honorary citizen" title by a Chinese district government.
Konareddy Murali Mohan, Head of Education and Research, Infosys Technologies (China) Co Ltd has been conferred the title of "honorary citizen" of Nanhu district by Jiaxing-Nanhu District People's Government at a grand function "Spring in Nanhu", the Indian Consulate in Shanghai said in a statement.
This is the highest award for a foreign national from Jiaxing-Nanhu district, home to the famous South Lake (Nanhu), the official birth place of the Communist Party of China.
Murali who played a central role in setting up Infosys China Education Centre at Jiaxing was nominated for this award after a careful evaluation process by the standing committee of Nanhu District People's Congress.
This award was further recognises his hard work, dedication, commitment and passion for education, as well as the Education and Research team's contributions to Jiaxing city, the statement said.
VR Rangarajan, CEO Infosys Technologies (China) Co Ltd, who also attended the function, signed an MoU with Jiaxing Science City for building the new campus of Infosys China Education Center at Jiaxing.
The new campus will offer state-of-the-art training facilities with a capacity of 3000 participants at a time and is expected to be ready by June 2014.
Infosys China Education Centre (Jiaxing) was established in collaboration with Jiaxing Science City two years ago and it is the first residential education centre of Infosys outside India.
Infosys' Global Education Centre at Mysore is one of the largest corporate education centres in the world with a capacity to train more than 14,000 people simultaneously.
Infosys has already trained more than 1200 fresh graduates from its training centre at Jiaxing since its inception.
In this centre, Infosys also conducts soft skills, management and leadership development programs for its employees across China, in addition to training fresh employees.
As part of the Infosys Campus Connect initiative, Infosys also organises faculty enablement programmes for university faculty to bridge the gap between industry requirements and university curriculum.
Infosys has trained over 1000 school and college students under its Spark programme to create awareness about IT industry and the opportunities it can offer.
Infosys is opening its training programmes in China to select clients as well as potential clients to establish long-term strategic partnerships, the statement said.
The company along with other Indian IT companies like WIPRO and TCS are very active in China, but mostly confined to the multinational companies.
Among the three, TCS however managed to secure few hundred million dollars worth of business in Chinese companies and the Indian government has been insisting that China should provide big opening to Indian IT firms to address the trade imbalance.