IBM, NASSCOM Foundation Collaborate to Make 2500 Students Job Ready from 23 Colleges Across Karnataka, Haryana and NCR

IBM and NASSCOM Foundation have jointly announced a significant collaboration to launch the New-collar Employability Skills Program – a CSR initiative with an objective to enhance the skills of more than 2500 college students from underserved communities and make them job ready. The program has already on-boarded more than 2500 candidates through 23 colleges in the regions across Karnataka, NCR and Haryana. The aim is to train these students in emerging technologies and provide employment opportunities.

This unique CSR intervention by IBM will engage with students through an on-campus approach in a 204 hour-long blended training model. Students from 23 Tier-2 and Tier-3 non-technical institutions will be skilled on new-age technologies like Data Science, Cloud Computing and Block-chain. The training will also cover life skill and functional English skills. The colleges chosen for the program include Vijaya Evening College, East Point College, Vidya Vahini College, Vivekanand Degree College, Karnataka college Dharwad, Siddaganga College, Siddhaganga Women's College.

“If we want India’s talent base to compete in the global economy it becomes imperative to upskill them. Our collaboration with NASSCOM will help students to better align with market shifts and industry needs. As part of our Corporate Social Responsibility, we are promoting skilling across our programmes for next generation to pursue STEM careers. IBM has been at the forefront and investing in the empowerment of the students to make them future ready and increase the talent pool,” said Rumi Mallick Mitra,  Leader, Corporate Social Responsibility, IBM India Pvt. Ltd.

Ashok Pamidi, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, said. “This is possibly the first time that a CSR initiative will be working to train the youth from Underserved communities on Future skills such as Data Science, Cloud and Blockchain. We are glad to partner with IBM for this unique initiative which will work towards making these young students job ready for the Industry. A win-win situation for both society and industry. We also would like to take this opportunity to encourage more organizations to come forward and help create uplift the youth from underserved communities by providing them with on the new-age technologies”.

NASSCOM Foundation along with IBM has identified iPrimed and TMI as the training partners for the program. The training will be delivered through a series of online and classroom sessions. The program will also have the students participate in project work and learning events like project competitions, tech talks, Industry leadership talks and Mentorship program etc. All the stakeholders including NASSCOM Foundation and training partners will also assist in providing placement support to these students after the completion of the program.

In March this year, IBM announced a significant engagement in India to advance the skills and careers of more than 200,000 (2 lakh) female students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields. The collaborations began with signing of agreements with three state governments—Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh—and are planned to widen to several other states in the next few months, including Rajasthan. Today over 50,000 girls are being enrolled across 600+ govt schools across the country for the Stem for Girls program to learn coding and new collar skills. The program will enrol hundreds of more schools in the coming months.

IBM new collar skilling initiatives in India also include:

1.   A two-year Advanced Diploma Programme in emerging technologies created in collaboration with the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, which will be available to 100 Industrial Training Institutes (ITI), including 50 all-women ITIs, over the next three years. IBM will also offer internships of up to five months to some students, presenting an opportunity for them to further deepen their skills and understanding in emerging fields such as Cloud and AI. Currently 40 ITI’s have been enlisted to initiate the 2 years diploma program in this academic year

2.   As part of IBM’s ongoing engagement with the Government of India targeting young innovators through the Atal Tinkering Labs initiative, some 4,000 mentors and 600,000 mentees will benefit from a unique AI-powered Mentor Platform. Developed with the IBM Watson cognitive engine, the platform monitors mentor and mentee interactions to provide personalized support to those using the platform. IBM has thus far on-boarded 2,500 mentors, including 300 IBMers, to this platform by collaborating with the national Mentor of Change mission.