By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: The Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER), faculty of engineering and technology of Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (SOA) and acknowledged as Numero Uno among institutions of higher education in Odisha, has staved off the huge worldwide impact of the Covid-19 pandemic to ensure placement of about 85 per cent of the total eligible students of the 2021 graduating batch in top-notch companies.
Around 30 per cent of these students have received job offers during Day Zero dream campus drive involving reputed companies with Amazon proffering the highest package of Rs. 30 lakh per annum with the average annual salary received by the students being Rs. 6.3 lakh.
The companies who have picked up these students include Microsoft, Amazon, Finastra, Robert Bosch, Dell, PWC, Kloudgin, Deloitte, HP Inc, Temenos, Informatica, MAQ Software, NPCI, Salesforce and Rapyuta Robotics. In spite of the pandemic, most of the students have also received multiple job offers.
The remaining around 55 per cent of the students have received offers from reputed MNCs and Day-1 and Day-2 recruiters like Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, DXC, Capgemini, Hexaware, HCL, NIIT Technologies, Infogain, Tudip Technologies, V-Construct, L&T Technologies, NCC, Global Edge and several others.
Besides, reputed digital marketing corporate, Mediamint, has evinced interest in recruiting a sizeable number of talents from SOA this year based on their Centre of Excellence model which could lead to placement of approximately 95 per cent of the students by end of the campus recruitment season.
More than 90 companies have participated in the campus recruitment drive in ITER this year. Besides, reputed corporates have shown their inclination towards SOA for setting up learning hubs in the campus based on the students’ performance. This would result in the students receiving enormous exposure in the industry domain in the days ahead.
Exposed to the excellent facility of training programs in coding, technology, soft skills, aptitude and intermittent counseling, students in SOA are expected to achieve their targets and recognized for their knowledge and skill at all levels.
A six-member team of ITER students, who participated in the Smart India Hackathon 2020 conducted by the Ministry of Education, emerged champions winning the problem statement RK57 (Digital Policing) winning a prize money of Rs. one lakh. Another significant achievement was the performance of the students in the TCS CodeVita Season 9 conducted by Tata Consultancy Services.
Microsoft has extended career opportunity to nine students from SOA which is the highest in eastern India for the second consecutive year while consulting major Deloitte, with offices in USA, has committed for premium category selection with a package of Rs. 7.6 lakh per annum for a significant number of talents.
Besides, the joining conversion ratio in Day-1 companies, Cognizant, Wipro and Infosys has received huge appreciation from the said corporates indicating the best conversion ratio in eastern India.
SOA’s focus being on investigation and scrutiny, it has set up 13 research centers and 42 research laboratories to boost such activities in 22 identified thrust areas. Work of SOA’s faculty and research scholars get published regularly in reputed peer reviewed international journals. The university has 7261 Scopus Indexed publications to its credit till now with an H-Index of 65. Researchers at SOA have so far filed 299 patents while the number of novel gene sequences submitted is 515.
The socially inclusive university has nine institutes under it imparting education in engineering, medicine, dental sciences, management, nursing, hospitality and tourism management, hospital administration, pharmaceutical sciences and biotechnology, law and agriculture. SOA was ranked 20th in the country by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) in 2020 occupying the first place in Odisha. It has been re-accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) with ‘A’ Grade.
ITER has since emerged as a centre of quality engineering education in the east for its qualified faculty members, innovative curriculum prepared in consultation with universities of repute in the world, impressive placement and industry interface. Its programs have been accredited by the prestigious Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), an internationally reputed US-based accreditation agency.
