Have you heard about Manchester, England? (My first job after university was in this awesome city.) In the late 1700s and 1800s, Manchester was known as "Cottonopolis," the world’s leading center for cotton spinning and textile production. It was one of the first cities to industrialize, driven by mechanized mills, steam power, and factory systems. Innovations like the spinning jenny, water frame, and power loom revolutionized textile manufacturing. The Manchester Ship Canal, combined with access to coal, made it ideal for large-scale industrial growth.

Have you heard about Coimbatore, a city located in the beautiful southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu? Coimbatore is often referred to as the "Manchester of South India" due to its strong textile industry. Like its English namesake, Coimbatore has grown into a significant hub for technology companies, especially over the past two decades. While not as large or globally known as Bengaluru (also known as Bangalore) or Hyderabad, Coimbatore has carved out a solid niche in the technology ecosystem, particularly for things like information technology (IT) and software services, engineering and industrial automation, and a very exciting startup ecosystem.

Coimbatore also boasts a growing ecosystem for VLSI, embedded systems, and digital design, thanks to a strong pool of engineering talent from local institutions (e.g., PSG Tech, CIT, Amrita University), a supportive startup and SME (small and medium-sized enterprise)  culture, cost advantages, and a less crowded environment for specialized technology work.

Of particular interest to me are organizations that are involved in ASIC and FPGA design. Several boutique design services companies and startups in Coimbatore offer FPGA prototyping, RTL design and verification (VHDL/Verilog/SystemVerilog), IP core development, and SoC validation and board bring-up. Some firms focus on ASIC front-end design and verification, including testbench automation and UVM-based environments.

The reason I’m waffling on about all this is that I have a young friend in Coimbatore who is looking for an internship. He’s an Electronics and Communication Engineering student with a strong foundation in VLSI, digital design, and system-level programming.

So, if you're based in Coimbatore, or anywhere relatively nearby, such as Bengaluru, and you are looking for a bright and highly motivated intern, please don't hesitate to reach out to me via email or LinkedIn, and I’ll be delighted to connect the two of you.

What’s in it for you? Well, in addition to welcoming the aforementioned bright and highly motivated intern to your team, the radiance of my smile will lighten your life. Furthermore, if you have a fascinating technology tale to tell, your bright and highly motivated new intern could perhaps persuade me to write an in-depth article about it for EEJournal.com. This would be priceless publicity, as you simply cannot pay to have an article posted on this esteemed publication’s website.