By Ahmed Elsherbini
New Delhi. India is one of the fastest-growing major economies projected to be $5 trillion before the end of this decade. With digital and technology transformations driving a significant portion of this growth, the talent in India is a force multiplier for driving scalability across diverse sectors.
India is uniquely positioned as a global talent hub with the availability of key skills and talent at scale. Coupled with a culturally diverse workforce, a growing young and skilled population, eminent universities to source talent from, a thriving startup culture, ease of doing business, and the government’s focus on the indigenous development in the aerospace and defence (A&D) sector through its Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) vision – makes India a hotbed of talent. Boeing continues to be a strong partner of India’s aerospace sector for over eight decades, both in the mission-readiness and modernization of India’s defence forces, as well as a mainstay of India’s commercial aviation sector. And, has been committed to making investments in India to help create jobs, bolster India’s manufacturing sector, and build the right ecosystem to support and build the talent necessary to serve the global and local A&D sectors.
The Boeing India Engineering & Technology Center (BIETC) in Bengaluru and Chennai which started with a small base of engineers has today evolved into the largest of-its-kind outside of the U.S. More than 4,500 engineers and technologists contribute to global aerospace growth by delivering cutting-edge R&D, innovation, and high-quality engineering work for Boeing’s defence, space, and commercial businesses in India for India, and for the world.
Over the last year, we hired close to 1,500 engineers across diverse skill sets to continue supporting our key defence platforms and programs in India like F/A-18 Super Hornet, P-8I, F-15, KC-46, AH-64 Apache, and CH-47 Chinook, and aerospace platforms.
As our talent base continues to support our customers through the engineering, testing, research and technology, information technology, and digital analytics capabilities– we ensure that we continue to reinvigorate our talent pool through relevant skilling, re-skilling, and up-skilling programs within the company.
Industry-academia-ecosystem partnerships
A significant aspect of ‘Make in India’, other than manufacturing has been to develop talent in India.
At Boeing, we have been actively contributing to this vision through our industry-academia-ecosystem partnerships, and well before ‘Make in India’ was officially launched, having had a research and development presence in India since 1995.
Most recently, we commemorated our 15 years of partnership with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). Our partnership journey began in 2007 with IISc as our strategic university engagement partner, to help support early-stage research in aerospace materials and structures technologies. In 2009, Boeing, IISc, Wipro Technologies Ltd., and HCL Technologies Ltd., launched the Aerospace Network Research Consortium (ANRC), the country’s first public-private aerospace research consortium that continues to develop technologies across airspace communication networks, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence areas. These initiatives promote innovation and talent at the interface of the university and industry.
In partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Boeing hosts one of India’s largest and most popular aeromodelling programs called the National Aeromodelling Competition. Launched in 2013, the intent of this engagement has been to continuously provide a unified national platform for students interested in aerospace and related engineering disciplines to learn and demonstrate their aeromodelling expertise.
Our endeavor to drive talent advocacy and development is bolstered through our focused programs and technical affiliations with the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) India, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the American the Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and through various colleges in the country. Most recently, with Women in Cloud (WiC) – a US-based community-led economic development organization, we have helped set up a Center of Excellence (CoE) in R. V. College of Engineering, Bengaluru, India to help support digital skilling among underprivileged women.
Accelerating the “Innovation Culture”
Establishing an ‘innovation culture” is another critical step to envisioning the future engineering talent in the A&D sector as the drivers of innovation and entrepreneurship. And creating a culture of innovation within the organization and in the ecosystem is critical to Boeing.
There’s more innovation underway today at Boeing than at any time in our 100+ years history. In India, our efforts towards driving continuous innovation within the ecosystem is significant. And we continue to do that through our industry-academia partnerships in the country.
This year, we launched the second edition of Boeing University Innovation Leadership Development (BUILD) program in partnership with seven incubators namely IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Gandhinagar, IIT Madras, IISC Bangalore, T-Hub Hyderabad, and KIIT Bhubaneshwar. The program is aimed at encouraging university graduates and early-stage startup entrepreneurs in India to develop ideas that can be converted into viable business offerings, aligned with Boeing’s vision of contributing to India’s robust startup culture.
We also host several innovation challenges through hackathons and programs like Idea to Product (I2P) for our people. These initiatives keep our talent stimulated to be the frontrunners in making air travel and critical missions effective, safe, and productive for our customers and people.
Building capabilities start at home
Our people are at the core of our growth and success. And our people’s career is critical to us. We believe, continuous learning and skilling will help us forge ahead in developing next-generation products and drive innovation for our customers, and of course, keep our teams motivated and inspired in their professional journey.
With the support of our partners and customers, we are committed to continuously nurturing talent in India that will help support the Government’s Make in India and Aatmanirbhar Bharat vision, and contribute to the country’s robust aerospace defence ecosystem.
(The author is Managing Director, BIETC and Chief Engineer, Boeing India)
