Press Release - February 23, 2007

India Launch of Adayana Automotive: Asia’s first automotive focused online university

Minneapolis, February 23, 2007 -- Adayana Automotive, a unit of Adayana Inc., a Minneapolis based performance improvement and workforce development company organized a Leadership Roundtable co-sponsored by SIAM (Society of India Automobile Manufacturers) in New Delhi, on Friday, February 23rd  to launch of the workforce development initiative for the automotive industry in India.

Adayana Automotive (www.adayanaauto.com) will support SIAM in setting up Asia’s first “online university” specifically focused on the automotive industry. India's automotive industry turnover is expected to reach $ 167 billion by 2016 — 4 times the current turnover. Given this exponential growth, it is estimated that 2.5 million automotive related jobs will be created over the next 10 years. The demand for a skilled workforce will be met in part by online and blended learning offerings.

The Automotive Industry Workforce Development – Learning from Best Practices event participants included business and talent management leaders from within the automotive industry along with the US-based organizations of ASE and AAIA. Several of the participating companies, such as Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra, Maruti Udyog, Bajaj Auto, Eicher, Daimler Chrysler, BMW, etc. have an immediate need for trained people in their manufacturing and service and support facilities.

Mr. Sandilya, the Treasurer of SIAM and the Group Chairman of the Eicher Group said, “We have to develop an industry-led initiative that [would] do two specific things: first, to create a curriculum for training [at] a low cost [and then to] implement this on an industry wide scale —on a generic basis [that will still provide] for customization by individual companies; and then to create an industry recognized certification system that could be operated independently.”

Dr Rajiv Tandon, CEO Adayana, Inc. said, “It is heartening to see that industry leaders, who recognize the issue of workforce development as crucial to the success of the industry, are willing to come together as a group and apply leading edge global best practices that provide the scalability to meet this immense challenge.”

SIAM (www.siamindia.com) is the apex industry body representing 38 leading vehicle and vehicular engine manufacturers in India. SIAM is an important channel of communication for the Automotive Industry with Government, National and International organizations. The Society works closely with all the relevant stake holders and actively participates in the formulation of rules, regulations and policies related to the Automotive Industry in India. It works closely with the CII (the Confederation of Indian Industries) and the ACMA (the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India.)

Adayana, Inc. (www.adayana.com) is a Learning Services company headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota with a global presence through its subsidiary Adayana India. The company provides a wide spectrum of learning services to a focused set of vertical markets: Automotive Services; Defense; Food, Agriculture and Life Sciences; and Training Outsourcing.

The company's range of solutions and services includes strategic business alignment consulting; content and course development; instructional design; learning technology development; and managed learning services. Adayana applies its domain knowledge to fulfill its clients’ needs in order to determine and close performance gaps. Additionally, the company uses technology as an underlying enabler to support its clients' information, knowledge, and learning needs.