The advent of IT as major driving force has changed the image of Bangalore from 'Garden City' to 'Silicon Valley of India.' The symbolism of this title courses through the veins of the city to give life to the corporate hub that it is today. Through this transformation, the city has invoked a corporate culture in its daily life. Today employee ID card is one of the favorite fashion accessories of many people here. Imbibing this corporate culture, Bangalore located New Horizon College of Engineering welcomes students to its campus with a big board warning them of the restriction of entry for students who do not wear their respective ID cards. This is just a small step that the institute takes in order to accustom its students to the corporate environment when the time comes for them to enter the corporate state of affairs. Today, New Horizon College stands akin to a corporate campus amidst global IT giants such as IBM, Accenture, Cisco, Philips, Intel, Honeywell and others operating from an IT micro market in Bangalore called Outer Ring Road.
However, looking back to the time of establishment of New Horizon College of Engineering in early 2000s, the neighborhood of the institute was entirely different. Perhaps, nobody may have thought that the institute would be surrounded by Multi National Companies in the next 14 years of its journey. It all started with the land allotment and acquisition efforts by Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board to promote Outer Ring Road as a major spot for IT developments in the Bangalore City.
A report released five years ago referred to Outer Ring Road as an IT growth corridor, which accounted for almost 25 percent of Bangalore's total IT space at that point in time. Stretch of 31 km from Silk Board Junction to Hebbal, throughout the day Outer Ring Road carries thousands of daily commuters who are working in the numerous IT companies running both sides of the road. Way back in 2001, when IT businesses were sprouting in and around Bangalore, New Horizon Educational Institutes was one among the few organizations, which foresaw the potential of Outer Ring Road to become an IT market of the city. With enormous amount of experience in running several educational institutions ranging from Kindergarten to higher education since 1970, the group established New Horizon College of Engineering by acquiring a large space in this region. Dr. Mohan Manghnani, Chairman of New Horizon Educational Institutes says,"Location is very important for the growth of any engineering college. Unlike many institutes, which are in remote locations, our students get good recognition when they are out in the job market and for us, the support from the industry in terms of getting a guest faculty in short notice and coordination for industrial visits become very easy."
Grooming the Students to Become Leaders of Tomorrow
When a student enter the administration block of the campus, one can see a long list of recruiting partners of New Horizon. Accenture, TCS, Cisco, E&Y, Dell, Oracle, Microsoft, Macafee, Intel, Infosys and Sonata Software are few names among them. Coincidentally, many of these companies share their borders with New Horizon campus today. Hence, as the day progresses in the New Horizon campus, students can indulge themselves in more activities that are inclined to the present industry trends apart from regular lectures from the industry leaders. To cater to the needs of industry and groom students to meet the current industry requirements, the institute has employed a placement cell, which considers students and companies as two of their most important customers. After a series of consultations with faculties, college management and industry experts, they have developed many innovative training methodologies.
The entire training program of the institute encompass a three stage process to make the students ready for the industry and develop the etiquettes of the corporate world, which includes Engineering aptitude training, soft skills training and comprehensive technical training. As most of the neighborhood companies belong to the IT sector, the institute has given a special emphasis to train students to meet the requirements of the industry through e-learning. This facilitates students to learn technologies of the Information Technology industry in a scientific manner through a structured path, at a pace suitable for individual students. To make these initiatives a complete success, the institute has signed MoUs with many industry leaders like Infosys, Intel, TCS, Wipro, GE Technology and FKCCI. Today, almost all the eligible students from New Horizon get jobs from the campus itself in reputed companies with some of them having more than one offer.
The number of eligible candidates is the direct measure of students who passed every engineering subject with minimum percentage of scores mandated by the Industry. In reality, many colleges partially hide this fact to display their placement records in alluring colours, as there would be only few students appearing for the final placements. However, with close to 600 seats in the undergraduate programs alone, New Horizon College of Engineering has one of largest intakes of students among the engineering colleges in Karnataka. More than 90 percent of its students attend the final placement and grab an offer letter in hand before leaving the institution, which is a big achievement for any institute in the country. This is the reason why one the delighted recruiters of New Horizon wrote in a mail to the institute after the on-campus recruitment sessions, "I have only seen few institutions that make conscious efforts to invest on training the students in soft skills and behavioral areas alongside academics."
To increase the number of students attending the final placements and to equip them with the necessary knowledge background, the management has built a good team of faculty members. The benefit of Bangalore being hub of various industries has been helping the institute considerably to attract good number of experienced people with teaching abilities from the industry. However, to transfer real time knowledge about the dynamic industry developments, the faculty should be engaged in research activities. Keeping this in mind, the institute has developed research centers in every department and many of them are recognized centers of the Visvesvaraya Technological University. "Each department in our institute is headed by PhD holders and we have many faculty members who are actively pursuing their research activities inside the campus," claims Dr. Mohan.
Finding the New Horizons
The institute's indulgence in industry relevant curricula does not end with engineering degrees. The MBA program at New Horizon College of Engineering exposes the students to Capsim business simulation, SaaS training, NSE stock exchange, compliance management and digital marketing aside from the training in SAP and Data Analytics. These MBA programs are a boon for a large community graduates in India. However, many students still believe that the management education in India is not capable of leading them to a lucrative job and hence choose foreign countries as their study destination. "If you want to do anything in India, then you should be educated in this county. The way we run businesses here is completely different from what we would be taught in a foreign country," says Dr. Mohan, who took over the administration of New Horizon Educational Institutes and expanded the services from a small primary school and a junior college to eight high performing institutions under the banner - New Horizon.
While the institutes that are running by the New Horizon Educational Institutes have already been established as favorites among the students across the country, Dr. Mohan and his team have couple of important plans in the near future. One is the separation of the MBA programs from the engineering college to present a brand new B-School to the country and the other one would be the most important step in the entire journey of New Horizon College of Engineering - Achieving the autonomous status. The institute has already submitted the request to become an autonomous institute, which will give them the freedom to design a curriculum that is more relevant to the current industry trends.
Dr. Mohan, who is always confident on every step that he has taken in his life to make New Horizon as very big brand says, "I believe in the saying 'Nothing is Impossible.' I was determined to achieve and make New Horizon a very big brand, where we can provide quality education to the society." The determination of its Chairman is evident in the activities of New Horizon and that is the reason why the industry says, "In New Horizon's pursuit of excellence, they are making future ready professionals rather than bunch of engineering graduates."
Dr. Mohan Manghnani
Dr. Mohan is the Chairman of New Horizon Educational Institutes and he took over the administration 24 years ago after completing his studies in India and the U.S. Other than running a group of educational institutes, he indulges in many social activities for which he became the recipient many awards from Government of Karnataka and other organizations across the country. "On personal front I do my bit to satisfy my inner soul and emerge as a satisfied person," says Dr. Mohan, who spent about Rs. 10 Crores for the empowerment of unprivileged societies under New Horizon Educational and Cultural Trust. 'Bharath Ratna Sir M. Visvesvaraya Memorial National Parisara Rathna,' and Navaratna Sir M Visvesvaraya Award are few achievements to name for Dr. Mohan.
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