United Nations and Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) announced a new presidential initiative, collaboration between ESCAP, Infosys, the Government of India and the Government of Myanmar, in the Information Technology sector.

The overall aim of this project is employment generation for young people, empowerment of women, training and skill development, poverty alleviation, and greater development assistance to Myanmar.

Phase I of the initiative, being launched in Mysore, would have 25 outstanding IT engineers and entrepreneurs from Myanmar undergo 12 weeks of intensive training in India in core competencies of software development.

ESCAP and its partners are developing specialized training modules, which are in high demand in the global IT industry, for more than 100 young engineers and entrepreneurs who will be up-skilled at the Infosys training centre.

Building the skills and competitiveness in these areas will go a long way not only for employment creation in the high-end IT sector and entrepreneurship development, but also for building ‘the critical mass’ to attract investments from the Global IT companies, including Infosys.

This initiative has also been undertaken to strengthen the capacity of small and medium enterprises especially through the empowerment of women and youth, and to attract investments in the IT industry.

Initiatives such as these will assist Myanmar to fully integrate with the ASEAN Economic Community and to move towards graduation from the least developed category by 2020.