CIOInsider India Magazine

According to CMIE (Center for Monitoring Indian Economy) the country’s unemployment rate stands at 14.45 percent this year and the situation in rural and urban areas is equally bleak. But that’s about to change now, as Nasscom and DXC Technology have joined hands to provide ‘Employability Skills Program’. The program is just the right cure to what tech companies are looking for among potential candidates, who have basic college degree or more, but lack the main essence and that is having a flair for using new-age technologies. This pushed both firm to come up with the aforementioned program, as it specifically deals with shaping skills around new-age technologies such as artificial intelligence, data science, the Internet of Things, cyber security, and UI-UX design.

The partnership involves a number of 7,500 undeserved students from tier 35 tier II and III technical and non-technical colleges from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh.

Since it’s hosted on the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology's 'Future Skills Prime' platform, will boost the juice as it happens to a skilling ecosystem that places prime focus on emerging technologies. Then comes a training partner excluding Nasscom which is TMI e2E Academy, a training and placement firm for fresh graduates and diploma holders.

At the moment, 2,500 students are already hooked on the program and the program plans to fish 5000 more by the end of the month.

Despite having basic educational qualifications, it doesn’t necessarily qualify if the main essence, which is skills in new-age technologies, is lacking. It makes it all the more difficult to hear that ‘you’re hired’ from companies.

When more students step forward to getting technologically equipped, they not only acquire new skills to cope with the virus, but also learn how to fit in the digital economy propelled by these tough times which forced the widespread adoption of digital technologies.

According to the India Skills report 2021, less than 31 percent of Odisha students have employable talent for a suitable job. Hence, programs like these do flatten the curve for students to access training on new-page technologies as well helping companies to fix the right person to the right job.

What the Program Promises
It packs 80 hours worth training of a learning based curriculum chipped in three hours. Starting with level one, students will undergo a 14 hour 'Digital 101' course through Future Skills Prime. Son followed by other levels which will focus on the student’s preferred technical specialization.

Students will also receive soft skills training, interview preparation, and communication skills training, among other things, to ensure that they are job-ready.

In come the quizzes and forums on the Future Skills Prime platform which will encourage students to share their experiences, facilitating co-learning.

There’s more to it, as Nasscom will bring leaders and subject matter experts across industries to allow students to have a glimpse of their world from their point of view.

Students will work for a month with various companies in the field at the end of the program to obtain hands-on experience.

The winners of the 'ideation workshop' will be given the opportunity to intern for six months with DXC Technology.

But more than anything, the program tackles the first anxiety, that is learning how to tackle interviews, improve their communication skills, of course beyond just being fluent in english, and gain experience in a typical office setting.

Similar to this program, Nasscom is working closely with IBM to make about 5000 students job ready, overall helping India’s youth future ready.

Nasscom is primarily known for its focus on providing the undeserved students of India with employability training skills and partnerships for the same. With that said, here’s to the other skills development program by the firm and its renowned partners.

IBM and Nasscom Make 5000 Students Job Ready
Approximately 5000 underserved youth from Karnataka, Telangana, and Delhi-NCR have gained data science and cloud computing skills, with over 2000 of them being placed in jobs, thanks to an IBM-NASSCOM Foundation program targeted at preparing India's youth for the future.

With IBM’s SkillsBuild career readiness program, IBM and the NASSCOM Foundation collaborated with 23 universities to certify enrolled students on IBM certified courses on emerging technologies such as data science and cloud computing.

In its initial year, this unique program engaged students with a 250-hour on-campus blended training model that combined online and face-to-face instruction to gain skills in new-age technologies such as Data Science and Cloud Computing.

Like every offline program which turned online during the pandemic, this program also sailed through the same route and in fact sailed and ended sailing to a completely online style of education and learning. TMI and iPrimed collaborated to train students from 23 Tier 2 and Tier 3 non-technical colleges.

Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, IBM and NASSCOM Foundation, in collaboration with training partners, have been conducting placement drives across the country and have already placed over 2000 students in major technology companies.

IBM has promoted the development of technical, soft-skills, and life-skills in young people in order to prepare them for ‘new collar’ occupations in the future.

Nasscom and Aricent Fulfill that IT Dream
This partnership dates back to 2017, when the two collaborated to launch ARISE, a skill development program that was specifically devised for the engineering students hailing from economically backward sections of the Indian society.
This program carried forth the purpose of fulfilling the dreams of those students who aspired to spend their career in the IT companies of the nation. Therefore, the program harboured 3,400 students from Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Delhi NCR.

The initiative ARISE stands for Aricent Skills for Employability Program, an on-campus training program that whisked its efforts with 16 tier II and tier III engineering colleges to fresh graduates.

However, the initiative comes after the success of both firms’ foundation, which trained about 2,700 students on employability oriented skills, but indeed both helped land those students a profession at firms such as Amazon, Dell, Tech Mahindra and Wipro among others.

It was upon this success, both firms decided to raise the bar by devising ARISE, which provided both online and offline classroom training sessions focusing on software testing, JAVA, SQL and alike.

“With access to the necessary skills and education, these students will become future innovators and leaders,” Lokendra Sethi, Head of HR India, DXC Technology, stated.
At the conclusion of the program, we hope to welcome some of these young ambitious professionals to intern with us.”

“Through blended learning models with Future Skills Prime as the platform, we are attempting to deliver underserved children high-quality training right at their desktops. We appreciate DXC's support for this one-of-a-kind initiative”, said Nidhi Bhasin, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation.