RALEIGH – It’s no secret that competition is tight for talent these days.

But global tech consultancy firm, Infosys, has got a novel approach: If they can’t find the talent pools, then they’re going to build it for themselves.

Enter NC State University. Today, Infosys announced plans to team up with the university to help train newly recruited employees in data science.

Over the next three years, at least 150 new Infosys employees will go through a six-week “training boot camp” led by NC State faculty – covering everything from statistics and data visualization to machine learning and programming in Python.

New Infosys employees attending “training boot camp” at NC State University this week.

It’s all part of Infosys’ campaign to create “tech and innovation hubs” around the country and hire 10,000 employees nationally – including 2000 in North Carolina – by 2021.

Other hubs are located in Indiana, Texas, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Arizona.

“When we started this journey of hiring 10,000, we knew that there isn’t enough talent available in the market,” Infosys’ president Ravi Kumar told WRAL TechWire.

“So we went back to our roots. [We] are a company completely rooted in education and learning.”

$20,000 investment per employee

Getting new recruits up to speed is no small investment. Kumar estimates that the firm is spending around $20,000 per employee in training costs.

But he believes it’s worth it.

“We realized if we can bring the power of our training and education structure and build talent pools from different schools in the fantastic academic ecosystem of the U.S., we could create tech talent for a difficult age and actually bridge the gap,” he said.

“The question is, why aren’t others doing this?”

Infosys officially opens Raleigh center expected to employ 2,000

The firm opened its North Carolina hub in Raleigh in August 2018 – largely because of its proximity to leading research universities and community colleges.

“NC State University was kind of the obvious choice after we chose Raleigh, Kumar said.

Training ‘boot camp’

Classes kicked off this week for the first cohort of 25 employees.

The training is part of NC State Executive Education, a program that provides “custom-designed solutions for companies to develop new skills across disciplines and business segments”.

To date, the university has partnered with other global organizations, including Biogen, Cisco Systems and MetLife.

However, NC State Executive Education’s director Daniel McGurrin said Infosys’ program is singular in its nature.

“They’re really taking a strong educational approach,” he said. “Folks are hired in, and provided this training from the beginning, knowing that it’s going to be a service that they are going to provide to their clients. It’s unique in that area.”