The Mumbai-based St. Angelos Computer Education Pvt. Ltd has dared to tread into the IT education territory dominated by transnationals such as NIIT, Aptech and scores of other smaller companies countrywide, with considerable succ-ess. Promoted in 1993, currently St. Angelos has 40 training centres staffed by over 600 professionals operational in India’s commercial capital, making it the largest network of computer training centres in the city of Mumbai. “Every youth in our country should avail the opportunity to become computer literate, as IT is a global communication medium which can transform lives and requires no pre-qualifications to learn. IT education is an excellent option even for high school dropouts, especially in the fields of animation and hardware maintenance specialisation. I also recommend computer education as a parallel career path in its own right for computers are all-pervasive and IT literacy can dramatically improve every individual’s productivity,” says Agnelorajesh N. Athaide, promoter-chairman and chief executive of St. Angelos Computer Education (ACE).
Athaide’s personal history reads like a classic rags-to-riches story in India’s city of gold. Starting his career in a bindi factory at the age of 13, he switched to selling insurance policies, cosmetics, perfumes and garments, and did other odd jobs including data processing while studying commerce at Mumbai University. In 1993, when Mumbai was torn apart by Shiv Sena-inspired riots, Athaide made a modest beginning providing IT education to 18 students with a single computer at his home in suburban Malvani. “I entered the right business at the right time. The IT boom had just begun and thousands of youth were clamouring to learn how to operate these wonder machines,” recalls Athaide.
Within the next three years he had established 12 IT learning centres in Mumbai with an aggregate enrolment of 800-plus students. Converting his proprietary firm into a limited liability company, he chose the franchise model for further growth and expansion. Since then the number of St. Angelos IT training centres in Mumbai has grown to 40, and are credited with training 250,000 youth in IT and computer usage, offering varied curriculum and multiple specialisations.
With ACE now well established, Athaide is planning a national roll out under the franchise model. “By offering life skills and other education progra-mmes besides IT courses, I want to increase the number of ACE students from 10,000 currently to 100,000 within the next three years. And the motivation behind this national roll out plan is not profit as much as to change the lives of millions of unemployed youth who need the skill sets to make them employable,” says Athaide.
Wind in your sails!
Anupama Patil (Mumbai)