Dell Technologies subsidiary VMware will invest $2 Bn in India over a five year period. The digital technologies provider plans to add software engineers, expand facilities and help women in tech reenter the workforce. Patrick Gelsinger, CEO of VMware, said the funds will primarily be used for building talent to grow the company’s R&D centre and sales teams in Bengaluru, Pune and Chennai.
A part of the $2 billion budget will be used to fund an HR project with an organization called ‘Women Who Code’ to train 15,000 women in VMware products over the next two years. The company will absorb some of these women but most will be hired by companies which use VMware products, helping the company increase acceptability among developers under Project Taraa, which is a partnership between the Women Who Code group and VMware. It targets those women who are looking to reenter the workforce after a break. Women Return to Work program will be launched on December 1. About 50 percent of women in core engineering jobs drop out of the workforce after eight years. Women’s participation in tech is not just important from the perspective of inclusivity in an organization. It is essential to growing the GDP of India by $154 Bn by 2021. “When I started my career almost 25 years ago, my observation of India was that it was moving to this place where it had become necessary to educate women. From that to a stage where women contribute to 42 percent of the total workforce–that for me is innovation at lightning speed,” said Regina Wallace-Jones, Women Who Code Board of Director. Project Taara is designed to upskill women through a free certification program that would bring them to an equal footing in terms of technical skills and industrial expertise after a break.
Globally, most women choose to step away from the active workforce to raise families and their reentry into the workforce is slow, Wallace-Jones added. VMware’s VMinclusion Project Taraa: Women Return To Work is meant to help such women with experience in tech fields to gear up for smart technologies and make a difference in the industry.
Source: economictimes.com, peoplematters.in
