Udacity aims to upskill one lakh engineering graduates by 2017

NEW DELHI: Hiring in IT companies has seen a major decline in the past few years and openings for tech jobs are going unfulfilled due to lack of skilled graduates. To tackle this issue and bridge the existing skill gap, US-based online educator Udacity, with its #BeInDemand campaign, aims to upskill 1 million students and professionals across the country and make them job-ready in the near future.

IT companies globally today are focusing on strengthening their existing workforce in terms of incentivizing employees to upskill themselves. When it comes to hiring a new workforce, students with latest technical skills and aptitude have a much better chance of getting hired, especially for the high paying jobs, than the ones without. The #BeInDemand campaign by Udacity with Venturesity is a step towards solving this rampant employability problem amongst engineers in the country.

Vardhan Koshal, Country Head, India at Udacity, said, “According to a World Economic Forum report, traditional IT jobs are expected to see a decline of 0.38% annually through 2015 to 2020. Another recent report by assessment firm Aspiring Minds has revealed that more than 80% engineering graduates are unemployable in the country. This is a huge challenge for the IT industry where jobs in big data, data science, mobile and cloud computing will drive the IT industry in the next decade. With our new campaign #BeinDemand we are aiming to upskill 1 Lakh engineering graduates across the country and make them easily employable for the best in the industry.”

“This collaboration would really benefit the student community and help them to showcase themselves in front of top tech companies and startups. We are excited to work with the leaders in online education in upskilling the Indian engineering diaspora. This partnership could be the next yin-yang of tech industry,” says, Subhendu, Co-Founder of Venturesity.

With this campaign, Udacity plans to reach out to all 3,300 engineering colleges in India and partner with selected Institutes to help them with resources to make the next 100,00- engineers job-ready in terms of being well versed in the latest technology. Career training for tech jobs, knowledge events, career fairs and nanodegree scholarships are some of the components that Udacity plans to integrate in its campaign. The company’s courses and paid certification programs (called Nanodegrees) are built by leading technology companies across the globe.