French start-up Le Wagon launches in India
'Le Wagon choosing Bangalore to be the first campus for its debut in India is not nearly a coincidence. We are the IT capital of the country, we are also a start-up hub, and we are also a ground for global R &D, which makes it very natural for an organisation like Le Wagon to come to India and start with Bangalore as its launchpad,' said Ruth D'Souza Prabhu, senior journalist, during the event.
The company, which offers bootcamps and courses in technical courses such as web development, data science and data analytics, comes to India after having expanded to 40 cities across the globe.
Producing successful start-ups
Highlighting the success stories of the 30,000-plus people trained by the company across the globe, Paillard said that the company has helped them find jobs in the tech industry and launch start-ups themselves without depending on a technical resource.
'We have helped create more than 200 start-ups, not just in France, but in Brazil, in Berlin, in London... The skills were not just useful for them to kickstart, but also to grow because when you are launching a technical start-up, you need to understand the underlying product that you're building,' he said.
According to the company, the start-ups created by Le Wagon alumni have cumulatively raised around $ 1 billion till date.
Acknowledging that India was a leading tech hub already, he, nevertheless, suggested that given the fast pace at which technologies such as AI were evolving, India cannot simply rely on the edge it has enjoyed historically and need to train a new generation of talents that will be able to adopt new skills.
'What we hope to bring to India is not just a technical course provider, but also to train a new generation of tech talents,' he said.
Intersectionality in tech
'We need people from different backgrounds, different understandings and different nuances to come together to solve for issues that we have, including this city's current problem of rain and traffic,' said Shreya Krishnan, MD-India at AnitaB.org, while speaking at the event.
Susanna Jacob, India Cohort Lead, Le Wagon, concurred and noted that the vision of the company in India is to bring the country's diverse talent to the platform and give them the tech skills that would help them be more relevant.
'The transformative journeys and experiences that the 30,000 alumni all over the world have had is what I want to bring to Le Wagon India,' she said.
Paillard too expressed interest in seeing people from diverse backgrounds being part of the bootcamp.
'I think it allows to solve problems that were way harder to solve before. So, I would love to have a variety of projects and success stories from diverse backgrounds,' he said.
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