By P. Vikram Reddy

The U.S.-based $35 million The Boston Group (TBG) is all set to offer online training courses to generate `insurance agents'. The company is hopeful of signing an MoU with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) and a few insurance companies, to launch its online courses in February, simultaneously with its `Financial Campus India.com' portal developed specifically for Indian requirements.

In the U.S., the Boston Group, which made rapid strides in web-based distance learning, had partnered `Financial Campus' to provide training for insurance and banking sector, and developed 350 course contents in the last five years. It has the exclusive rights to deliver course work of Financial Campus outside of the U.S.

Subu M. Kota, the U.S.-based Chairman, who was here to give finishing touches to ongoing negotiations with several companies, told The Hindu that Boston Group (through its subsidiary-Boston Software Consultants India) obtained in principle approval of IRDA around October last, and has now developed and uploaded content for one course of 80 hours in accordance with the syllabus for `Certification of Agents'. Certificates will be issued by the IRDA at the end of the course.

Mr. Subu said negotiations were in an advanced stage with 3-4 insurance companies and are likely to be finalised in two weeks. Interestingly, Mr. Subu prefers to look at this venture as a `social experiment', besides the inherent business angle, as online learning can be used effectively to reach out to the unemployed and women at home.

Accordingly, the 20-member content development team at its Hyderabad offshore development centre (with overall 70 people) is working on converting course material to suit the Indian regulations, and also into other Indian languages — Telugu and Urdu to begin with. Boston Group will not deliver directly, but will be working through other agencies, institutes or government bodies.

Boston Group, which took to e-learning in 1995 has about 500 companies using its `Intra Learn' platform (Learning Management System-LMS) to train employees, besides about 70 Universities using it to teach and offer degrees and MBA courses online. In 1999, it started offering the platform in Asia.

In this sector also, TBG is negotiating with 2-3 Universities in Tamil Nadu besides trying to revive its earlier tie-up with Anna University, he said.

Plans for the next six months include tying up with two other Universities which are into engineering and technical education with which negotiations are now on.