IBM and the Telangana government on Tuesday announced a collaboration to provide curated online courses for the state’s students that will enhance their technical and professional skills.
IBM will work with the Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK) to offer ‘Open P-TECH’, a free digital education platform focused on emerging technologies and professional development skills, for 30,000 students over a period of one year across engineering, degree and polytechnic courses.
Apart from providing access, IBM and its training partners will also train college teachers in using the platform, so that they can guide their students and help onboard them onto the platform and mentor students to learn these skills that will enhance their readiness for their future careers and the workplace.
Under this partnership, IBM will offer its entire catalog of Open P-TECH courses in emerging technologies like cybersecurity, blockchain, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, cloud, Internet of Things, along with professional skills, like design thinking to learners between 18 to 22 years for free.
“Telangana’s focus is on developing a good ecosystem for emerging technologies. We have established a Blockchain District and have also declared 2020 as the Year of AI. Young minds who are trained in these technologies will find good job prospects in our state,” said Jayesh Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Information Technology, Electronics & Communications, Industries & Commerce.
“The technological strength of IBM gives us confidence that the 30,000 students enrolling for these courses will greatly benefit from them. In addition to these courses, I would also encourage the students to make use of the professional skills courses and mold themselves into well-rounded assets suitable for the global marketplace,” Shrikant Sinha, CEO of TASK, said.
“With Open P-TECH students learn to leverage their digital, emerging technology and professional skills to improve their employability. IBM’s skilling initiatives are aligned to the country’s Skill India mission, and this collaboration between the government, academia, and industry is another step towards providing our youth with access to digital education and professional skills to future-proof their career,” said Sandip Patel, Managing Director, IBM India/South Asia.