Meet the Indian IT guru who was given a fast-track visa to the UK
The recipient, Narayanan Palani, is a highly experienced software engineer from India who has taken up a role in London working for IT services firm BirlaSoft. BirlaSoft is an Indian company with a UK office and is a part of the 150-year-old, multi-billion dollar CK Birla Group.
According to Palani's CV, he started working for BirlaSoft UK Ltd as a systems analyst in February 2015. Prior to this he worked at Lloyds Banking Group as a team lead/test analyst and several other banks including US Bank and KBank.
Palani graduated from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in India with a degree in software engineering. He also holds a degree in information systems and management and a postgraduate diploma in management.
His list of 13 professional qualifications includes the HP Integration Specialist certification and five certifications for IBM courses, such as "Rational Functional Tester for Java" and "Rational Test Management and Robot v2003".
He has also authored several academic papers and written books.
Palani contacted Techworld by email, providing a copy of his visa application form at the same time.
"My career goal is to be on the forefront, being an entrepreneur leading youth technology in the next five years," he said.
"Being a recognised leader in application security and test automation I would like to develop software testing tools and add value to the existing technologies as part of new software testing ventures.
"As an author I am looking forward to contributing quality time training graduates in universities across UK in a way to bring young talents closer to the real world. The aim is to implement cutting edge technology through high-tech business ideas by venturing digital technology startups. Demonstrating the technology startup business plans to angel investors and utilising the business venturing opportunities within Europe is one of my primary goals in the upcoming months.
"As a graduate of digital technology and management, this to me is a great opportunity to venture into software testing across various areas such as mobile testing, security testing and automation needs. Writing case studies about digital technology opportunities in the UK and attracting world leading talents to work in the software testing business start ups to deliver cutting edge technology solutions is what I want to achieve via the exceptional talent route.
"This is the main reason I have come to UK and I am benefiting the economy at the moment."
Tech City UK was asked to comment on why it chose to endorse Palani but the agency has yet to respond.
Palani said he wasn't aware who the other visa recipients are.
Last April, Tech City UK was granted the power to give out 200 Tier 1 Exceptional Talent visas each year as part of an effort to attract highly-skilled and much-needed software developers and entrepreneurs to the UK. However, the publicly-funded quango received just 10 applications between 6 April 2014 and 1 April 2015, suggesting the visa was poorly marketed around the world.
Techworld asked Tech City UK to disclose who it has been endorsing with the talent visas but the organisation did not engage, possibly because it would have been in breach of the Data Protection Act.