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TCS partners with São Paulo government to plug IT skills gap

Indian consulting firm will present IT as a career option to 190,000 Brazilian students across the state ias part of a global education program.
Written by Angelica Mari, Contributing Writer

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has signed a cooperation agreement with the government of São Paulo to bring its IT education program to 190,000 high school students across the Brazilian state.

The Indian firm's goIT education program seeks to present career options within technology and STEM subjects in general to students at public schools.

Access to TCS's digital learning platform Campus Commune is also part of the initiative. Some 4,000 teachers will also be trained, the idea being to enable them to extend the content reach beyond the initial student groups taking part in the program.

The Indian firm's technologists will also be delivering content in person and helping students out in building the ultimate goal of the project, an app focused on the local businesses of the areas where they live.

Creating a bigger pool of IT talent is in TCS's interest: the company has a growing business in Latin America, which has posted $369 million in revenue for the first quarter of 2017, up more than 14 percent in the same quarter last year.

Like many other countries, Brazil has a shortage of technology manpower, partly due to lack of interest in STEM subjects. According to the Association for the Promotion of Brazilian Software Excellence (Softex), the local gap of IT professionals will reach 408,000 by 2020.

According to Code.org, there will be 1.4 million jobs worldwide by 2020 but only 400,000 will be filled - and Brazil will be the most disadvantaged country on the continent in terms of professionals able to meet that demand.

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