SIST and Apuphi Sign MOU to Bridge the Gap Between Classrooms and Careers.
Namchi, 8 September: The Sikkim Institute of Science and Technology (SIST) and Apuphi Private Limited have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen student employability, industry readiness and placement outcomes through Apuphi’s verified career platform.
The MOU was signed at the SIST campus in the presence of Prof. (Dr.) B. B. Pradhan, Principal cum Director, SIST, Ms. Uden Kiroung Sherpa, Head of the Training and Placement Committee, and Mr. Ezra Dural, Training and Placement Officer, along with Apuphi co-founders Diwash Kapil Chhetri and Sulabh Raj Gurung.
Under the collaboration, SIST students gain verified career profiles, AI-driven career planning and assessment tools, and direct access to employers. The Institute’s Training and Placement Cell gains DPIS, Apuphi’s Digital Placement Intelligence System, replacing spreadsheet-based tracking with a live dashboard covering student readiness, applications, shortlists, interviews, offers and department-wise placement ratios.
Closing the industry and academia gap
India does not have a shortage of graduates. It has a verification problem and a timing problem.
Employers cannot tell which claims on a resume are real, so they fall back on institution brand as a proxy for quality. Institutions cannot tell, in time to act, which students are ready for the roles being hired for, because readiness only becomes visible at the end of a placement season when nothing can be changed. Students sit in the middle of that gap, doing everything asked of them and still arriving at the market undifferentiated.
Apuphi closes the gap at both ends.
On the trust side, verified status is written by the issuing institution or the employer of record, never by the candidate. That turns a resume from a claim into a record, and lets talent from Sikkim and the Northeast compete on evidence rather than on brand name.
On the readiness side, the gap becomes measurable while there is still time to close it. Skill gap analytics show placement cells and department heads exactly where a cohort falls short against what employers are actually hiring for, which certifications are missing, and which skills are rising in demand. A third year cohort can be corrected in third year rather than discovered in fourth. Curriculum decisions stop being made on intuition and start being made on live hiring data.
That is what turns industry linkage from an annual placement drive into a continuous feedback loop between the classroom and the market.
Joint statement from Diwash Kapil Chhetri, Co-founder and CEO, and Sulabh Raj Gurung, Co-founder and COO, Apuphi:
“SIST students are more than capable of competing anywhere in the country. What they lacked was a way for employers to see that without a brand name doing the work for them. This collaboration puts verified evidence in students’ hands and gives the placement cell the visibility to act early. We are proud that an institution in our own state is the one setting this standard, and we intend to take it to campuses across the country.”
Invitation to universities and colleges
Apuphi is now inviting universities, colleges and skilling institutions across India to collaborate.
Most placement cells are solving the same four problems. Placement data lives in spreadsheets that are out of date the moment they are shared. Student readiness only becomes visible in the final semester, when nothing can be corrected. Curriculum decisions are made without knowing what employers are actually hiring for. And accreditation reporting turns into weeks of manual reconstruction every cycle.
Apuphi is built to remove all four. Placement tracking becomes live rather than retrospective. Readiness becomes visible from the first year, so gaps are closed while there is still time. Curriculum planning gets grounded in real hiring demand instead of assumption. And accreditation reporting draws from data the institution has already been collecting all year.
For students, the outcome is simpler. Their achievements stop being claims on a page and become verified records that an employer anywhere in the country can trust without a warm introduction.
Institutions joining this founding cohort receive priority onboarding, direct access to the founding team, and first priority as Apuphi scales its employer network.
Write to hello@apuphi.com or visit https://apuphi.com.
About Apuphi
Apuphi Private Limited is building India’s verified career data layer, a three sided platform connecting students, employers and institutions on verified credentials. At its core is the Apuphi Score, a credibility index where verified status can only be written by the issuing institution or employer of record.
Contact: hello@apuphi.com
Reported by
Dr. C. P. Khatiwada and Ezra Dural Assistant Professor Physics and Civil Engineering SIST Chisopani
