With Andhra Pradesh government trying to build IT industry virtually from the scratch, Happy Minds Consulting, a manpower solutions start-up, is establishing its operations in Vijayawada next month to equip engineering students with job-ready skills.

Besides teaching them soft skills, the firm will also offer professional skills through the eight-week course. It recently signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government to set up operations in various towns in the State.

“We find a dire need for job-ready skills among the engineering students. Though over 1.50 lakh students pass out each year, those with industry-ready skills are not many. We provide skills in areas like Business Process Management, Digital Marketing, Cloud and mobile computing,” Leeladhar Rao, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Happy Minds, told BusinessLine .

“As the State invites IT companies to set up shop, there is a huge scarcity for trained manpower though it has over 300 engineering colleges. There is a demand to equip them with required skills,” he said.

The firm has raised ₹1.5 crore in the seed round to set up operations. “We would expand operations to Visakpahatnam and Nellore this financial year, before expanding to Jharkhand and Karnataka,” he said.

For engineering colleges, it will organise CampusConnect programmes, connecting them with the colleges. “These programmes are aimed at throwing light on what the industry expects from the colleges. We are not going to charge any fee from colleges,” Sridhar Sharma, Co-founder and Product Head of Happy Minds, said.

The firm has been running staffing solutions for the last five years in Hyderabad.