Google announces a ‘Developer Students Club’ summit, to nurture India’s next-generation in technology

Mumbai: Building on the momentum to create a pool of highly skilled tech workforce in India and giving the large Indian student community a head start on latest technologies like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Mobile & Web Development, Google announced ‘Developer Students Club’ summit (DSC) in Goa today.

The program is aimed at inspiring and training student ambassadors who will encourage students in their campuses to learn newer areas of technologies that will equip them with the right skill sets as they step out of colleges to join the workforce.

Speaking on the inauguration of ‘Developer Students Club Summit’, William Florance, Developer Products Group and Skilling Lead, Google, said, “In the last one year, we have engaged over half a million students and developers across India through a variety of programs and initiatives. To build on this momentum, and broaden access to world class technology curricula for students, we are delighted to launch the Developer Students Club summit today. These programs will make it easy for students and developers to gain the skills they need to be successful in the changing technology landscape.”

The inaugural batch will see 200 student ambassadors from 98 cities across 170 colleges in India, attend the three day Summit (Feb 23- Feb 25) and learn about various emerging technologies through a series of engaging sessions from experts from Google and industry, hands-on one-to-one mentoring activities, that will help the students to unlock their creative potential. The summit will also have a ‘Design Thinking’ workshop by the University Innovation Fellows from across India, encouraging them to find creative and innovative solutions, using advanced technologies to solve for India’s complex problems. This is the first of many summits that Google plans to host in the next 12 months.

“It is an awesome feeling teaching others what you know; we are not only teaching but also growing ourselves.’”, said, Spoorthi V, Vidya Vikas Institute of Engineering and Technology, Mysuru and one of the student brand ambassadors attending the DSC Summit.

The DSC summit announced today, is inline with Google’s larger program of training two million developers in India. Last year, the company announced 130K scholarships for both working professionals and students community, that gives them access to new-age technology and an opportunity to gain skills they require to be successful in the changing technology landscape. Our goal is to help nurture future developers and leaders and create a pool of highly skilled tech workforce, that is readily employable by the Industry and help spur innovation.

Tata Technologies expands its flagship Ready Engineer program to eight colleges in Aurangabad

Pune: Tata Technologies, a leading global provider of engineering services and manufacturing enterprise IT, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with eight colleges in Aurangabad to offer its flagship ‘Ready Engineer’ Program for students. The initiative aims to bridge the industry-academia gap and make engineering students workforce-ready by providing them with real-word, hands-on exposure to technology.

According to the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) India Skills Report 2018, 1.5 million engineers graduate every year, but only 52% are employable. The report also highlights the fact that engineering courses which are linked with industry or corporate through internship or training usually score high on employability as compared to others.

To address the skill gap, Tata Technologies’ ‘Ready Engineer’ program identifies mechanical engineering students from colleges to be part of this unique training. The program imparts application-based training by industry experts, in the Design Engineering domain and Computer-aided Design (CAD) tools, hosted on Tata Technologies’ learning tool i GET IT®.

The MoU with the eight colleges in Aurangabad is significant as it is the first time that the ‘Ready Engineer’ program has been initiated at the Government College of Engineering, Aurangabad. The program too has undergone changes as it now consists of technical domain training, soft skill training, employability assessment and National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) courses to meet the future opportunities of Industry 4.0.

The eight colleges from Aurangabad that have partnered with Tata Technologies are:

1. Government College of Engineering, Aurangabad

2. Jawaharlal Nehru Engineering College

3. Chatrapati Shahu College of Engineering

4. Deogiri Institute of Engineering & Management Studies

5. Maharashtra Institute of Technology

6. Marathwada Institute of Technology

7. PES College of Engineering

8. Shreeyash College of Engineering & Technology

Speaking on the occasion, Warren Harris, MD & CEO Tata Technologies, said, “Tata Technologies’ flagship Ready Engineer program is a journey that we have undertaken towards bridging the industry-academia gap. Our core focus is on providing students with hands-on experiential training to make them job-ready. We wish to help create a sustainable educational ecosystem through this initiative. The inauguration of our Aurangabad cluster takes us one step closer towards our goal of equipping all Indian engineering students with the skills required for sustained professional success.”

Anubhav Kapoor, General Counsel and Company Secretary, Tata Technologies who heads the Corporate Sustainability and CSR initiatives, said, “India is about to experience a demographic dividend in few years, as more than 12 million youth are expected each year to enter India’s labor force over the next two decades. With our ‘Ready Engineer’ program, we aim to fill this skill gap and address industry demand by producing future-ready engineers.”

He further added, “Our module has been updated as per industry trends and will focus on personality & employability enhancement, soft skills, technical concepts through domain and NPTEL. This will help Ready Engineer students to improve their fundamental and practical knowledge along with personality development.”

Speaking on this association, Dr. Pranesh Murnal, Principal, Government College of Engineering, Aurangabad, said, “The launch of Tata Technologies’ ‘Ready Engineer’ program in Marathwada will definitely enhance the employability index of mechanical engineering students from this region. It will also benefit the knowledge and skill of faculty members and motivate them to establish an effective link with the industry, which, in turn, will also benefit the students. I extend my gratitude to the Tata Technologies team for this initiative.”

NPTEL, KRACKIN and Aspiring Minds have been selected as the implementation partners for this program. NPTEL provides e-learning through digital and video courses in engineering, the sciences, technology, management and humanities. It is a joint initiative by seven Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore. KRACKIN, a startup based out of the NASSCOM 10000 Startup warehouse in Bengaluru, is a platform to help improve the industry-readiness of engineering students with timely industry interventions through their web and mobile platforms. Aspiring Minds, a talent assessment organization, helps to enhance soft skill and personality development through credible assessments and training.

Mumbai University students to get degree online in a month

Source: Times of India Pg 5, 23/02/2018

Post-Aadhaar hurdle, HRD to use PAN for education survey

NEW DELHI: With Aadhaar becoming a hurdle in getting the right data on faculty members of educational institutes, the ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has decided to also use PAN numbers for its All India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE), which is under way.

The ministry has also decided to use PAN numbers in place of Aadhaar for those teachers who have been issued with the same for the forthcoming National Institutional Ranking Framework ranking, which will be announced on April 3.

Many teachers were not happy over linking of Aadhaar with the process. While Aadhaar helped identify 80,000 ghost teachers in AISHE 2016-17, it also left many genuine teachers out of the total count. A senior professor of IIT-Delhi said, “Some teachers didn’t have the Aadhaar number and therefore the software didn’t capture the details of such faculty members and his/ her name was counted in the list of faculty of that institution.”

An HRD official said: “In some cases, teachers were having problems with Aadhaar and without that the process could not be completed. The government decided to allow the use of PAN numbers in such cases.”

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/post-aadhaar-hurdle-hrd-to-use-pan-for-education-survey/articleshow/63036202.cms