The Ghent Workgroup (GWG) has announced the membership of Kochi-based Future Schoolz India – a finishing school, skill development centre and consultants for print, media and allied industries. According to GWG, the aim is to establish high quality print and contribute in developing skills in the latest know-how and technologies.

Kulakkada Pradeep, CEO at Future Schoolz, said, “Joining GWG is a proud moment for me and Future Schoolz in our journey to contribute towards the print industry to upgrade overall standards. We are committed to contribute in improving specifications of GWG and to help Indian print industry to benefit from the contributions of GWG.”

He said Future Schoolz was started with the mission to set the print industry on the path of quality print reproduction, to be a central force for the industry to continuously invest in developing skills to bring the print industry to the forefront and cater to the global print requirements with highest quality standards. Future Schoolz helps print professionals and entrepreneurs to achieve better print and colour reproduction and is supported by print industry associations, print educational institutes and print businesses.

Expressing his excitement, chairman of GWG David Zwang said that Future Schoolz will participate with GWG in "developing best practices and bringing the work of the GWG to the Indian printing industry, adding it to the growing interconnected international family”.

Future Schoolz offers multiple courses in area of printing technology and colour management. The courses are short term, annual and short-term training with practical sessions in shopfloor. Future Schoolz also conducts colour management courses for printing professionals, students and for entrepreneurs to provide them basics of colour, colour models, colour management workflows, colour standardisation, variables in colour management, colour reproduction challenges, and colour measurements.

Jose Thomas, principal consultant at Future Schoolz, said, “At Future Schoolz, we have the mission to achieve print excellence through print standardisations and accurate measurements. Understanding of GWG specifications and other tools will help us to work towards our mission with confidence. This can benefit the Indian print industry and raise the print standards and colour management expertise.”

Formed in June 2002, GWG is an international assembly of industry associations, suppliers, educators and industry members from around the globe. Its objective is to establish and disseminate process specifications for best practices in graphic arts workflows.

Since its inception more than 15 years ago, the organisation has consistently produced numerous process specifications for PDF exchange, as well as developing useful tools for automating processes and testing and establishing consistent PDFs for print and publishing.