Young Afghans head to India for high tech training

Young Masooma Haidari is what the future of Afghanistan should look like for many. Employed as a database operator in a government office she, on a daily basis, deals with applications that are unintelligible even to most. With the second largest number of IT professionals in the world in India she is a member of a growing tribe of young Afghans who, are visiting India to upgrade their technical skills and training. Staying alone in a foreign country, even if for a fortnight, requires courage, ambition and conviction and yet this is the new determined face of a young nation. But there are comfortable similarities between Afghanistan and India. Masooma says, “when I visited India I felt that I was living in my own country…some of the cultural is so similar to my country.”

Her journey and that of others from Afghanistan who have visited India to improve on their IT skills has been picked up on by training institutes such as Koenig Solutions which have found a fertile market in the country’s talented youth seeking opportunities expand their technical knowledge and return to their homeland armed with additional skills.

According to Koenig’s CEO Rohit Aggarwala, the company has been in the business of offshore training for many years and though based in India, ninety five percent of their customers are from overseas with people flying in from all over the world for training. The course, including the travel and airfare, daily transport, world-class curriculum, examinations, accommodation, and meals – is perhaps half the price it would cost anywhere else in the world.

Koenig had its first Afghan student in 2004 via the UNDP. Today, about ten students a month from Afghanistan attend its schools, with two women candidates trained as recently as October 2009. Professionals like Naseer Ahmad are IT officers for international NGOs operating in Afghanistan and have returned for advanced study. With training under their belts these are the future of Afghanistan, returning more confident of making a meaningful change.

 by Deepali Gaur Singh