Escom Exports Student Talent to India

Escom Exports Student Talent to India

Reporter: Rocío Castañeda / Photographer: Jorge Aguilar

La empresa Infosys cuenta con un programa de becarios para captar talento en el campo de la tecnología, en el que el Politécnico participó

The academic profile of Pavel Montoya Gutiérrez, a student of Artificial Intelligence Engineering at the Escuela Superior de Cómputo (Escom), captured the attention of Infosys Limited, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. The company invited him to join its international internship program, InStep, based in India.

Originally from Tejupilco de Hidalgo, State of Mexico, Montoya was the only student from Mexico City and from the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) to be directly contacted through the professional networking platform LinkedIn and offered this opportunity.

Over the course of six months, the eighth-semester student at the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) received advanced training in artificial intelligence, neural networks, cloud computing technologies, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and classical AI models, among other areas—an experience enriched by profound personal growth.

Who organizes this program, and what is its objective?

The global InStep program was created in 2000 by Infosys Limited at the initiative of its founder, Narayana Murthy.

Since its inception, InStep has operated as an international platform promoting intercultural and professional collaboration between university students and the company. Its objectives include connecting global talent, providing hands-on training and mentorship, and fostering professional growth and career projection.

What was the selection process like?

Montoya was personally contacted via LinkedIn by Shona Kulkarni, Global Head of InStep Partnerships and Student Relations at Infosys. After reviewing his profile, she determined that he met the ideal criteria to join the program. Following an interview with a representative from the Associate Marketing Executive team, he was selected as part of the first generation of Mexican participants in the internship. He thus became the first—and so far only—student from the IPN and Mexico City to take part in the program.

What period did the internship cover?

From February to August 2025. Infosys ensured a structured onboarding process and a comfortable stay. The company covered all expenses, including visa procedures and on-campus accommodation.

How was the program structured?

The first phase lasted two and a half months and took place at the Global Education Center (GEC) on the Mysore campus, recognized as the largest corporate training center in the world.

The curriculum included generative artificial intelligence, classical AI models, deep neural networks, large-scale data processing and analytics, cybersecurity fundamentals, agentic AI, prompt engineering, and the foundations of Amazon Web Services.

As part of the training, participants developed a project aimed at supporting a local toy manufacturing company in the community of Channapatna. The goal was to identify optimization opportunities through the implementation of AI tools. Working as a team, they proposed multiple strategies to improve processes within the company’s production chain.

The second phase took place at the Electronics City campus in Bangalore and lasted three and a half months. There, Montoya joined the Strategic Technology Group to develop the Model Experiment project under the mentorship of Amirul Islam, an AI specialist at Infosys, and coordinated by Dnyanavi Karopady, Program Coordinator at the company.

The project’s main objective was to design a reproducible benchmark and similarity metric to evaluate facial expressions independently of subject identity. The proposal supported offline evaluations as well as real-time applications, including its integration as a perceptual reward function within a reinforcement learning loop.

What other technological activities did you undertake during your stay?

Montoya participated in BizHack 2025, an international hackathon held to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the InStep program. The event served as an innovation platform aimed at addressing strategic corporate and national-level challenges.

Each team was required to include at least one software engineering student and one business student, as the challenges demanded a balanced combination of technical and managerial perspectives. Montoya teamed up with two Italian students: Emanuele Ghidoni from IE Business School and Roberto Rizzo from SDA Bocconi. Out of more than 50 teams, theirs was selected as one of the six finalists. This achievement allowed them to meet and speak with Narayana Murthy, with whom they discussed innovation and perspectives on the future of technology.

What did this experience represent?

Beyond technical knowledge, Montoya strengthened skills such as English—self-taught—teamwork, and public presentation. He also had the opportunity to immerse himself in Indian culture and travel to Japan.

What advice would you give to IPN students interested in international opportunities?

He encourages students not to see English as a barrier and not to feel intimidated by different cultures, emphasizing that there will always be people willing to offer support. He advises viewing international experiences as opportunities to discover realities they may have never imagined.

He also stresses the importance of having clear objectives and aligning them with international experiences, while maintaining high expectations.

To date, Pavel Montoya affirms that this has been the most transformative and meaningful stage of his life. The technical, social, and cultural lessons he gained will undoubtedly influence his professional performance at the Banco de México (Banxico), where he will continue to put “La Técnica al Servicio de la Patria” into practice.