January 6, 2010
School of Engineering, Coimbatore
 

Traditionally classrooms were confined to the physical space they occupied. But no longer, it so seems. Students continue learning online on their own, outside the classroom. And now they are participating in internships online, working remotely on their own.
 

IT company MindTree started offering a Remote Internship Program to engineering students of Computer Science and Information Technology across the country. Amrita students participated also in large numbers.
 

Last week, Amrita’s project Mobile Simulations was adjudged the Best Project from among numerous projects completed nation-wide. E. Ponraj, Vamshi Nagendra and S. Muthu Krishnan, all 3rd year B Tech. (IT) students comprised the winning team.
 

“The students gathered requirements, designed, implemented and tested the application,” explained Mr. V. K. Gokuladas of the Center for Corporate and International Relations that facilitated the internship program. “They used the C programming language on a Linux platform.”
 

In fact, the winning project was only one of five projects that Amrita completed for MindTree. Engineering Colleges Seat Allocation System, Library Management System, Automation of Traceability Matrix and Launch-Pad were some other projects the students worked on.
 

“All teams were technically assisted by respective guides from MindTree,’ further explained Mr. Gokuldas. “The students gained good experience of implementing a project with adherence to SDLC and other processes used in software development. They received good exposure to coding standards practiced in the industry.”
 

When the internship program was announced, over 100 students from the Coimbatore campus applied. 15 students were short-listed by MindTree based on their academic credentials. These students formed 5 teams of 3 each and commenced their projects. They began in the first week of October 2009 and two and a half months later, had completed and submitted their projects.
 

All 15 students will receive a Certificate of Appreciation from the organization. The students of the winning project will also receive a cash prize. “This recognition from industry brings to the fore, the latent talent in the young minds and what it can achieve with steadfast dedication and hard work,” finally noted Mr. Gokuldas.