IBM (NYSE: IBM) and NASSCOM Foundation today jointly announced the culmination of the first year of its New-collar Employability Skills Program. Under the program, more than 2500 students from 23 colleges across various regions of Karnataka, NCR and Haryana completed IBM certified courses on Data Science and Cloud computing.
IBM has been progressing technical, soft and life-skills development in youth to prepare them for the ‘new collar’ jobs. This unique CSR intervention by IBM engaged students through an on-campus approach in a 204 hour-long blended training model that uses online and face-face training imersions to build skills in new-age technologies like Data Science and Cloud Computing. Students from 23 Tier-2 and Tier-3 non-technical institutions were trained by training partners TMI and iPrimed. The colleges chosen for the program included Vijaya Evening College, East Point College, Vidya Vahini College, Vivekanand Degree College, Karnataka college Dharwad, Siddaganga College, Siddhaganga Women’s College* and several colleges in Dharwar, Bhagalkot, Gadag, Koppal, Nargund, and Bangalore, and Tumkur.
Post the training, NASSCOM Foundation, IBM, with its training partners, has been conducting various placement drives and has already placed 800+ students from the program in organizations like HGS, HCL Technologies, Mphasis, among others.
IBM new collar skilling initiatives in India also include:
- Early last 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. Today, IBM has collaborations with state governments including —Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Bihar, and Punjab. The program will enroll more schools across the country in the coming months
- A two-year Advanced Diploma Programme in emerging technologies have been 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 also offered 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
- IBM also announced the launch of Skills Build platform in collaboration with Directorate General of Training under the aegis of Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE). As part of the program, a two-year advanced diploma in IT, networking and cloud computing, co-created and designed by IBM, will be offered at the Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) & National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs).