IBM Collaborates with National Skill Development Corporation to Offer Free Digital Skills Training

IBM has announced its collaboration with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to offer ‘Open P-TECH’, a free digital education platform, focused on emerging technologies and professional development skills. As a part of the collaboration, IBM will curate online courses from Open P-TECH platform and offer it to users via NSDC’s eSkill India portal  to empower Indian youth on various skills to succeed in future careers.

Under the partnership, IBM  will catalogue its 30 + Open P-TECH courses on eSkill India portal, with 60+ hours of learning, as a knowledge partner. IBM will provide online courses in emerging technologies like Cyber Security, Blockchain, AI and Machine Learning, Cloud, Internet of Things, along with professional skills, like Design Thinking to learners between 18 to 22 years for free.

Dr. Manish Kumar, MD and CEO, National Skill Development Corporation said, "The power of technology should be leveraged for reaching out to the youth with scale and quality. Online trainings through digital platforms like Open P-TECH and eSkill India need to be accelerated to overcome geographical and socio-economic barriers. Digital learning will enable higher participation of women in the labour workforce as the scope for employability will increase.  Overall, digital learning will boost prospects of employment and livelihood for the youth."

eSkill India is  a digital skilling initiative from NSDC that aggregates digital learning resources through various Indian and global knowledge partnerships, to enable access to best-in-class learning resources for the India youth. Currently, over 16 lakh minutes of digital courses and content is available across various sectors in multiple languages, providing learners with the technology and skills needed to prosper in a rapidly transforming digital world. 

Sandip Patel, Managing Director, IBM India/South Asia said, “As the pandemic is driving the digital transition to happen more quickly, there must be new forms of learning if we want to empower young learners with technical and market-related skills. Our collaboration with NSDC is a significant milestone to equip the next generation with digital skills. Open P-TECH will make foundational learning in emerging technology and professional skills for the youth more accessible. Aligned to the country’s SkillIndia mission, we are taking another step in the evolution of our digital education approach to help the next generation of professionals have the exciting future they deserve.”

IBM’s Open P-TECH, a free digital education platform, focused on emerging technologies and professional development skills, was launched in India in March 2020. The platform equips learners and educators with foundational technology competencies, along with workplace learning skills. Under the partnership, Open P-TECH platform will offer courses to  develop soft skills, interpersonal skills, problem solving — a set of 11 key skills which are generally not available in a college curriculum, but are  high in demand and are valued in the job market. Currently available in English, the platform will soon be available in various Indian languages - starting with Hindi, followed by 10 Indian languages including Kannada, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Gujarati, Sindhi, Urdu, Bengali. 

The partnership will offer both learners and educators with direct access to digital learning resources in various trending specializations, thus providing a great way to jump-start career exploration including earning industry supported digital badges. Students can share these digital badges on their online resumes.

In India, previously, IBM has partnered with Directorate General of Training at the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Central Board of Secondary Education, Niti Aayog and State Department of Education, and State Skills Missions to impact more than 4 lakhs learners and students across 22+ states through its education and skilling initiatives.

Open P-TECH is now available to students and teachers worldwide. Register here: https://open.ptech.org

NSDC and Simplilearn Announce Collaboration to Upskill Professionals in Digital Skills Across India

 * The partnership will help deliver learning in digital skills and technologies 

* Access to over 1,000 hours of free eLearning, available exclusively on the Simplilearn Android and iOS mobile apps

The temporary shutdown of institutions and universities due to the COVID-19 lockdown has affected the overall learning of a large number of students and professionals alike. To support the continuity of digital skilling of the Indian workforce, Simplilearn, a global provider of digital skills training, today announced its partnership with National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC). Through this collaboration, Simplilearn will host more than 1,000 hours of free learning in digital skills and technologies for learners across India. Aspirants can find program details on NSDC’s eLearning portal - eSkill India - and access the learning programs on the Simplilearn Android mobile app (bit.ly/simplicertified) and iOS mobile app (apple.co/30pnzsm)

Aligned to the Skill India Mission, the collaboration aims to create a future-ready workforce by leveraging the power of technology.   Strengthening the digital learning ecosystem, both Simplilearn and NSDC will enable access to over 1,000 hours of digital programs and technologies under the categories of AI and Machine Learning, Big Data, Data Science & Business Intelligence, Cyber Security, Software Development, Project management, and Digital marketing. All programs are designed with a unique industry relevant curriculum, which provides learners theoretical understanding and enables them to get an indepth knowledge about the evolving industry trends. 

Commenting on the collaboration, Dr. Manish Kumar, MD & CEO, NSDC, said, “The dissemination of future-ready skills require technology platforms with high outreach capabilities. Through its partnerships, NSDC promotes online learning for accessing exciting work-opportunities that the fast-changing world offers.”

Speaking on the partnership, Krishna Kumar, Founder and CEO Simplilearn, said, “In these uncertain times we have witnessed a surge in the usage of digital platforms and technologies, indicating the creation of new job roles in the days to come. It is of utmost importance that the current workforce is well-equipped with digital skills to meet the industry demands of tomorrow. As part of Simplilearn’s continued partnership with NSDC, we are happy to support and contribute to NSDC’s efforts in the skilling of India’s workforce to prepare for a digital future. Through Simplilearn’s mobile app, learners will have the opportunity to upskill in IT and new technologies, including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data science, making for a job-ready workforce.”

To date, Simplilearn has helped more than one million professionals across 150 countries upskill and prepare for the digital future and now aims to help build a career for the future professionals in the field of Information Technology. 

NSDC’s eSkill India portal provides learners a platform to explore online skill-courses anytime, anywhere. The portal leverages technology to enable skill seekers to accelerate their learning through methods like virtual learning and remote classroom. eSkillIndia catalogues more than 450 e-learning courses in multiple Indian languages through leading knowledge providers.

UNICEF India, SAP India Partner to Improve Employability of the Young

On World Youth Skills Day, UNICEF India today announced its partnership with SAP India to provide career counselling to young people in the country that will improve their employability skills in a COVID and post COVID era. UNICEF is collaborating with YuWaah (Generation Unlimited) under this initiative to provide digital education and occupational skillset to the underserved young people of the country.

Under the collaboration UNICEF – YuWaah – SAP will strengthen the following:

* Improve digital skills and life skills for young people

* Provide young people with career options.

* Reimagine the model in other states with the Government of India

* Impacting one million young people by the end of 2022

Young people living in rural areas are particularly vulnerable when it comes to career and employability opportunities due to limited access to information, training, opportunities or the skills to participate fully in India’s modernizing technology-driven economy. The national aggregate on learner-computer ratio is reported to be 1:89, suggesting an inequitable access[1] in rural schools. Evidence[2] suggests that technology solutions can be optimized better to address poor learning levels, low retention rates, poor life-skills, and gender inclusion.

“Quality education and digital inclusion have never been more important. COVID-19 has exposed the fragility of access to education and this couldn’t be more relevant to India which has the highest number of young people, said Alexandra van der Ploeg, Head of CSR at SAP. “Together with UNICEF in support of the UN’s Generation Unlimited initiative, we can use the power of innovation to solve social issues and help our youth through education, workforce readiness, and entrepreneurship. In true SAP spirit, our unique partnership with UNICEF will not only maximize our collective impact but inspire young people in India and across the globe to help the world run better. After all, if our young people aren’t given the opportunities for skill development, they won’t be able to associate and support social causes that help in development of a nation,” she said.

“COVID-19 has led to disruptions in educational, economic and social spheres of life, that has thrown up many challenges for young people. The UNICEF – YuWaah – SAP India partnership will empower young people to help them harness their creativity, problem-solving and leadership to make a difference in their lives and in their communities. This partnership will address urgent challenges young people face by equipping them with life skills, social innovation and career guidance,” said Dr. Yasmin Ali Haque, UNICEF Representative in India.

Skill India Launches AI-Based ASEEM Digital Platform to Bridge Demand-Supply Gap of Skilled Workforce

Digital Platform 

* The portal will map details of workers based on regions and local industry demands

* Database of labour migrants in Indian states and overseas citizens who returned to India under the Vande Bharat Mission and filled SWADES Skill Card has been integrated with the ASEEM portal

* Candidate data coming to Skill India Portal from various state and central skilling schemes will be integrated including PMKVY, Fee-based Programs, National Urban Livelihoods Mission, Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana and Seekho aur Kamao

In an endeavour to improve the information flow and bridge the demand-supply gap in the skilled workforce market, the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) today launched ‘Aatmanirbhar Skilled Employee Employer Mapping (ASEEM)’ portal to help skilled people find sustainable livelihood opportunities. Apart from recruiting a skilled workforce that spurs business competitiveness and economic growth, the Artificial Intelligence- based platform has been envisioned to strengthen their career pathways by handholding them through their journeys to attain industry-relevant skills and explore emerging job opportunities especially in the post COVID era.

Envisaging the rapidly changing nature of work and how it impacts the workforce is crucial in restructuring the skilling ecosystem with the new normal settling post-pandemic. Besides identifying major skills gap in the sectors and providing review of global best practices, ASEEM will provide employers a platform to assess the availability of skilled workforce and formulate their hiring plans. Aatmanirbhar Skilled Employee Employer Mapping (ASEEM) refers to all the data, trends and analytics which describe the workforce market and map demand of skilled workforce to supply. It will provide real-time granular information by identifying relevant skilling requirements and employment prospects.

Announcing the launch of the ASEEM portal, Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Hon’ble Minister of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, said “Driven by Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s vision of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ and his assertion of ‘India as a talent powerhouse’ at the India Global Week 2020 Summit,, the ASEEM portal has been envisioned to give a huge impetus to our persistent efforts to bridge the demand-supply gap for skilled workforce across sectors, bringing limitless and infinite opportunities for the nation’s youth. The initiative aims to accelerate India’s journey towards recovery by mapping skilled workforce and connecting them with relevant livelihood opportunities in their local communities especially in the post COVID era. With the increasing use of technology and e-management systems which assist in bringing in processes and intelligent tools to drive demand driven and outcome-based skill development programs, this platform will ensure we bring in close convergence and coordination across various schemes and programs operating in the skill ecosystem. This will also ensure that we monitor any sort of duplication of data and further re-engineer the vocational training landscape in the country ensuring a skilling, up-skilling and re-skilling in a more organised set up.”

Highlighting how ASEEM will bridge the demand supply gap in the skilled workforce market, Shri AM Naik, Chairman, NSDC and Group Chairman, Larsen & Toubro Limited said, “Migrant labour has been severely impacted by the socio-economic fallout of the COVID pandemic. In the current context, NSDC has taken up the responsibility of mapping the dispersed migrant population around the country and providing them the means to re-build their livelihood by matching their skill-sets to available employment opportunities. The launch of ASEEM is the first step on that journey. I am confident that the real-time information ASEEM provides to both employer and employee will add value to the labour ecosystem and contribute to building the trust among the workforce, which is essential for the recovery of the economy.”

ASEEM https://smis.nsdcindia.org/, also available as an APP, is developed and managed by National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in collaboration with Bengaluru-based company Betterplace specialising in blue collar employee management.. ASEEM portal aims at supporting decision and policymaking via trends and analytics generated by the system for programmatic purposes. ASEEM is shall help in providing real-time data analytics to NSDC and its Sector Skill Councils about the demand and supply patterns including - industry requirements, skill gap analysis, demand per district/ state/cluster​​, key workforce suppliers, key consumers​, migration patterns​ and multiple potential career prospects for candidates.​ The portal consists of three IT based interfaces -

●        Employer Portal – Employer onboarding, Demand Aggregation, candidate selection ​

●        Dashboard – Reports, Trends, analytics, and highlight gaps ​

●        Candidate Application – Create & Track candidate profile, share job suggestion ​

ASEEM will be used as a match-making engine to map skilled workers with the jobs available. The portal and App will have provision for registration and data upload for workers across job roles, sectors and geographies. The skilled workforce can register their profiles on the app and can search for employment opportunities in their neighbourhood. Through ASEEM, employers, agencies and job aggregators looking for skilled workforce in specific sectors will also have the required details at their fingertips. It will also enable policymakers take more objective view of various sectors.

“Skill Development will be the Backbone of Atmnirbhar Bharat and Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan”: Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey

Dr. Mahendra Nath Pandey, Hon’ble Union Minister for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, today said that skilling, up-skilling and re-skilling of the India’s workforce will play a crucial role in the success of the Government’s vision of Atmnirbhar Bharat and the recently launched Garib Kalyan Rozgar Abhiyaan, announced by the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi.

The government is soon to get approval on the next phase of Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) which will have increased focus on demand driven skill development, digital technology and skills pertaining to Industry 4.0.  The current part of the flagship skill training scheme (PMKVY 2016-2020) is about to conclude and has so far trained close to 73 lakh youth in the country, Union Minister of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey said in an ASSOCHAM webinar today.

“We need to focus on employment in current scenario and that’s why we will be focusing upon demand-based skilling in the next phase of PMKVY, where we have added certain aspects like - strengthening district skill committees and connecting with local employment offices. District Commissioner and State Skill Development Missions (SSDMs) will also have a crucial role to play and will be connected to the industry bodies so that we can bridge the demand supply gap and impart relevant trainings to the migrant labour who have returned to their home state,” said Dr Pandey while addressing a webinar, ‘Skill Development Post Covid-19,’ hosted by ASSOCHAM.

He said that if required the government would give permission to run PMKVY centres and ITIs (Industrial Training Institutes) in 2-3 shifts in order to follow guidelines of social and physical distancing.

He also urged industry to expand their operations from big cities to small districts and villages and invest in upskilling and re-skilling the youth across rural India which would help make a giant leap towards the success of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi. “We invite private sector people to come forward and impart training and focus on being vocal for local product and services empowering youth to drive local economic growth.”

The Minister added, “I appeal to the industry to be more compassionate towards the migrant labour, do their counselling, treat them respectfully and facilitate those who intend to return and get back to work.”

In a veiled message to China, Dr Pandey said, “Our neighboring country is trying to remove its blot and working on expansionist policy, but it is also able understand now that this time round it has a strong opponent and it will further get to know this thing more clearly as our entire nation stands united.”

Talking about the various plans of the Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister, Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey said, “We are also working on Skill Management Information System, which will bring the entire skill ecosystem on a common web portal and work as an aggregator for demand and supply of skilled workforce.”

He further informed, “We plan to further simplify the apprenticeship which is the on-the-job model of skill training so that industries do not hesitate in absorbing apprentices and they do so enthusiastically. We shall invite suggestions from the industry on that, our proposal is going ahead with whatever discussions we took in past in this regard.”

The Minister also said that his Ministry is working closely with other central ministries and state governments on compiling data of skilled persons across the country which would be made available at a single click. “The database of skilled youth in the country will also the registered data of people who have come in from overseas as a part of reverse migration. NSDC, the implementation arm of MSDE, has come up with an effective application called ‘Swades’ whereby both Ministry of External Affairs and Ministry of Civil Aviation are also cooperating in collating this information and segregating the workforce basis their skills, so that they can later be connected with opportunities of employment within the country and add to their personal and nation’s overall growth.”

He stated that about 20,800 people have connected through the Swades app already. “In future, we plan to use their skill on a bigger scale and also seek help of industry bodies in utilizing their skills and promote them as trainers as we go ahead.”

Dr Pandey said that the role and responsibility of the industry in terms of skill development has increased during the current scenario even as the government is sharing ideas and working together with the private sector and that these times call for a unified solution for citizens of the nation, ensuring a more secure and better livelihood for all.

“In wake of the Covid-19 global pandemic we need to move ahead with innovative methods, especially in the industrial sector, there is a need for a big change in terms of the overall mindset and approach towards doing business as we need to give more importance to use of digital technology,” said the Minister.

In his welcome remarks, ASSOCHAM president, Dr Niranjan Hiranandani said, “Industry will willingly work in tandem with government to jointly fight this battle and support the Hon’ble Prime Minister in his vision of New Artmnirbhar Bharat.”

Mr Maninder Nayyar, co-chairman, ASSOCHAM National Council on Skill Development said, “Post Covid-19, new sectors and avenues of working are set to emerge, requiring new levels of skill, as such it is important for government and industry to predict the possibilities of the future and prepare for them today itself.”

Amid others who addressed the webinar included – Ms Divya Jain, co-chair, ASSOCHAM National Council on Skill Development, Dr Darlie Koshy, director general, Apparel Training & Design Centre; Mr N.K. Mohapatra, CEO, Electronic Sector Skill Council and Mr Pawan Agrawal, MD & CEO, Smartskills Bits & Bytes (P) Ltd.

Microsoft to provide free training for the unemployed

Microsoft Corp announced that it would be giving away more than 30,000 vouchers over the next 90 days to help unemployed people in Washington state get new computer skills.

The vouchers will entitle them to take computer classes for free -- either in person or online -- and take Microsoft certification exams at no or low cost.

At a news conference in Seattle, Gov. Chris Gregoire commended Microsoft for stepping up to the challenge of helping the nation come out of the recession stronger.

"When this downturn ends, we will need more skilled workers ready to enter the job market. Microsoft's generosity will provide thousands of men and women the skills they need to work with the software that runs our businesses," Gregoire said.

Washington's WorkSource job centers across Washington started giving out the vouchers on Monday. Washington state had the 17th highest unemployment rate in the country last month with a jobless rate of 8.4 per cent.

The vouchers are part of a new national programme Microsoft announced at the National Governors Conference in February. Elevate America hopes to offer job training to as many as 2 million Americans over the next three years.

Sue T Carter of Bellevue picked up one of the first vouchers. She said she has been working part time for more than two years and really needs to find a job that will help her pay her rent, because she is less than a month away from eviction.

Carter earned several college degrees years ago and has picked up most of her computer skills on her own, but she knows companies seek employees with professional training.

"Knowledge is power and I'm willing to do anything to make myself a more viable candidate in the workplace," Carter said. "It always makes you more viable if you've got more skills to offer."

She expressed enthusiasm that the training programme is not costing taxpayers anything. Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel, said the company also is excited about the public-private partnership because it will help both people and businesses.

"This programme is all about equipping people with the new skills they'll need to get a job in the changing economy," Smith said.

The free training will be for Microsoft software, from basic technology literacy to intermediate-level courses on programmes such as Excel and PowerPoint.

Agencies