Cisco launches talent-development strategy for India

New Delhi

February 7th, 2008

Cisco has announced a series of country-specific initiatives aimed at
expanding India's capacity to train, employ and retain qualified networking and
systems engineers. By establishing partnerships and opening testing facilities,
Cisco aims to expand India's networking workforce capacity to 360,000 engineers
in the next five years.

As part of the training-development initiative, Cisco announced that IIHT and
NIIT have become Cisco certified learning solutions partners. With this
designation, both IIHT and NIIT join Global Knowledge and Training Partner, a
business unit of Datacraft India, in offering the complete range of authorized
Cisco training materials and certifications to students and professionals in
more than 200 locations throughout the country.

Said Leo Scrivner, VP of HR for Cisco Services and Globalization Centre East,
"The launch of our talent-development initiative in India underscores
Cisco's commitment to expand access to the IT training and certification
resources that will support the country's economic growth. With these
initiatives in place, we are able to ensure that our customers and partners have
the resources available to train and equip students with the knowledge and
skills necessary to shape the country's information economy."

In concert with these new partnerships, Cisco is also announcing a major push
toward increasing access to its examination facilities through its primary
test-delivery partner, Pearson VUE. The company is committed to adding 150
testing facilities that meet these new requirements across India by the end of
the year. Pearson VUE will also deploy several mobile testing centers to
increase access to technology in rural and underserved areas. Pearson VUE
recently announced that it is requiring its test centers to adopt increased
security measures in order to safeguard the value of IT certifications.