December 29, 2000

Alstom Power, DeSai Systems Announce Learning Alliance

WEST HARTFORD, CT - Alstom Power, one of the world's largest suppliers of power generation services and equipment, has announced that DeSai Systems, West Hartford, CT, has been selected to establish and manage the company's first branded corporate university. The learning environment will initially be introduced at Alstom's Windsor (CT) manufacturing facility in early May, 2001. It will serve nearly 1,000 employees at the Windsor site and Alstom locations in Virginia, Tennessee and New York. Headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, Alstom Power employs more than 140,000 persons in 70 countries.

Announcement of DeSai's selection to design, deploy and host the new eLearning portal was made by Alstom Power president, William A. Kitchen. This marks the first time DeSai has been contracted to develop a corporate university by an overseas-based business and represents the company's initial entry into the power and industrial manufacturing sectors. An established provider of enterprise learning and learning management services since 1983, DeSai, to date, has developed corporate university systems for U.S.-based Fortune 500s representing the insurance, information technology, financial services and aerospace industries.

The Alstom-DeSai agreement calls for co-development of professional learning solutions under a unified structure that enables the customization of Alstom employee learning programs. DeSai and its content provider partners will make thousands of courses readily available to Alstom's employee community. A diverse corporate university course catalog, containing more than 2000 learning events, will allow Alstom to align employee learning with specific job roles. Learning options will include instructor-led, online and self-directed.

Commenting on the newly-formed alliance, DeSai CEO, Jatin DeSai, noted that the new corporate university architecture would offer Alstom's work force unparalleled learning content and opportunity. "With years of dedicated research, logistics development and customization of work place curricula under out belts," he said, "We look eagerly forward to our role in launching and sustaining this goal-achieving corporate university program."

DeSai's new portal for learning is expected to strengthen achievement potential across the Alstom enterprise through a logical and effective fusion of technology and education.