By Ganesh Samarthyam, Co-founder, KonfHub
From past two decades, Indian IT industry has been a star performer of country’s economic growth story on the global stage. Tech innovations and disruptions from the land of entrepreneurial excellence have set new milestones for the world to follow. With around 75 per cent of global digital talent in the country, we became the digital capabilities hub of the world in a short span of time. As a true warrior, this industry has bravely faced several big shock waves such as bubble burst, international anti-outsourcing sentiments and financial recession. And now the industry is gradually gearing up to recover and retreat from the most challenging crisis the world has witnessed after second World War II. Today, one of the biggest challenge in front of India’s IT and Technology sector is that the global pandemic has put millions of jobs at risk. Hitting the industry at a light speed, the pandemic has changed almost everything. Right from technology dynamics to consumer behaviour and IT spends, the COVID-19 contagion has forced the industry to follow new rules set amid the new world order.
Amid COVID-19 pandemic Cloud and Internet technologies are keeping our world running. With social distancing in place, “Virtual” has become the ‘next normal’. Businesses across the sectors are working remotely and people are completely dependent on online services for their essential and non-essential needs. To make this virtual world as real, efficient and impactful as possible, the demand for a robust cloud infrastructure is booming. The ongoing pandemic demonstrates how cloud computing has become essential in the modern world. Healthcare has started spending heavily on cloud based applications. Education has gone digital with robust cloud architecture. Retailers and manufacturers are upgrading their IT infrastructure with modern cloud and other related technologies. While we stay at home, cloud computing has made our entertainment and gaming activities more seamless than ever. Cloud has given stability and flexibility to this ‘everything virtual or online’.
With this, the demand for skilled professionals in cloud and related technologies like AI & ML services, DevOps, and containers (esp. Kubernetes) is dramatically increasing. Almost two years ago IDC estimated 1 million new jobs to be created in India by the year 2022 as more companies adopt cloud technology. Today the pandemic has forced to surpass every expectation making cloud adoption faster at a light speed. The India IT landscape has drastically changed in few months and a huge transformation of existing systems and approaches has already started. This transformation will demand for new skills in DevOps, software-as-a-service, information security, serverless architecture, multi-cloud environments, machine learning and artificial intelligence. The transition in this new and informed world order of cloud has the potential to open the pandora box of new job avenues for software professionals who are currently dealing with an uncertain and unstable job environment. These software professionals and developers have been drivers of transformation for decades. They have pioneered innovation across industries and helped businesses weather tough conditions. But most of these professionals are still working in traditional or old technologies which are not relevant to this virtual and new cloud world. Here up-skilling on cloud is the need of the hour.
From ages, industry specific events and technology conferences have played a vital role in up-skilling and staying relevant for the future. In this world of social distancing, virtual tech conferences are the best ways to learn and get expertise on the world of cloud. Cloud Community Days conference scheduled for 17th June to 19th June 2020 is one such conference which aims at up-skilling IT, software and technology professionals on cloud and other modern technologies so as to create new growth, learning and networking avenues in the post COVID-19 world.
The need for upskilling, switching to better roles, and exploring and adapting newer technologies has been the precursor for the rapid growth of tech and developer communities. In the current downfall of economies, markets and employment, Developer networking has become more important than ever. A good online network can successfully nurture better possibilities of gaining referrals and being a part of the organization one always aimed for.
Virtual technology conferences can empower the learning of new technologies, accelerate career growth, and expand the horizon of one’s professional network. We are witnessing a great demand and traction for technical events and conference as they are great platforms to learn from experts. In the COVID-19 world, networking has got a different meaning as social distancing has become a global mandate and the need of the hour.
With virtual meetings, webinars and conferences, connecting to people remotely has become more efficient, impactful and easier. These boundary-less technical conferences are allowing software professionals and developers to become a cloud-native, take a deep-dive of disruptive tools and approaches with renowned experts and nurture innovation by leveraging convergence of cloud infrastructure, AI, ML and a lot more. Collaboration, team spirit and up-skilling have gone online to redefine how we grow in near future.
We are living in unprecedented times where employees and organizations in every industry and sector are working to adjust to a new normal. For software professionals, up-skilling on cloud is the new normal.
Well said