Ministry approved 436 crore for developing IoT, AI and blockchain skills of more than 4 lakh youth

New Delhi : In an effort to drive skilling at scale for Indian youth and citizens, the Ministry of Electronics and IT along with NASSCOM, have approved the expansion of the Future Skills initiative to industry professionals across different segments, higher education students, and government officials. The expanded digital platform will be known as the Future Skills PRIME (Programme for Reskilling/Upskilling of IT Manpower for Employability), where the government aims to train around four lakh professionals and invest Rs 436 crore in the next three years.

The programme, the next level of the Future Skills platform, seeks to skill 412,000 professionals in new technology such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, Internet of Things, Big Data, cyber security, social and mobile and so on.

Last year, Nasscom and the government, in a joint initiative announced the Future Skills portal for member companies in the IT-ITeS industry to reskill across nine emerging technologies. Of the 4.5 million people employed in the industry today, 1.5 – 2 million are expected to require reskilling in the next 4-5 years.

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This PRIME is the next phase of the Future Skills platform and is open to professionals from outside the IT industry as well, who want to skill themselves in ten emerging technologies. Among the other beneficiaries of the platform are 10,000 government officials and 2,000 trainers.

“In the digital world, trained workforce will become India’s biggest competitive advantage. The government is committed to work with the IT industry and Nasscom to create India Digital Talent Stack, that will propel India into a leadership position in the digital world,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister of Electronics and IT, and Communication.

“States will have to factor in this kind of high end skilling of professionals as well,” said IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad.

The government claims that by 2030, India will become the largest workforce in the world with more than 90 million people joining the workforce.

According to the initiative, the government will offer diagnostics for learner preference and skill gaps leading to the identification of relevant courses, in building digital fluencies in emerging technologies, online upskilling in identified skill competencies, and offer blended programmes with online and classroom training.

The initiative will also enable the assessment and certification of learners, in line with industry needs and Government standards.

Further, each learner will get a Skills Passport, where competencies acquired by the learner will get accumulated, and a Skills Wallet, where she or he will have the opportunity to get up to Rs 12,000 from the Government of India, as an incentive upon certification. Launched in February 2018 at Hyderabad by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Future Skills Initiative aims to reskill the IT industry workforce in emerging technologies and job roles.

The courses are a mix of material developed by industry and academia. Several course materials are free, while more advanced courses are available for between Rs 6,000-70,000, depending on the kind of technology.

At present, the Future Skills platform offers reskilling/upskilling in 10 emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, blockchain, etc., across 70 new job roles and 155 new skills, and has worked with the IT industry to reskill/upskill over 200,000 IT employees, leveraging the platform.