DGT collaborates with AWS India to offer skilling programs on emerging technologies

The Directorate General of Training (DGT), under the aegis of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE), is collaborating with Amazon Web Services (AWS) India to upskill students in cloud computing, data annotation, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML), to boost their capabilities and employability. This initiative will benefit students enrolled in the institutions under the DGT, an apex organisation responsible for implementing long-term institutional skill training through an extensive network of about 15,000 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) and 33 National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs), across India.

As part of this collaboration, AWS India will provide individuals with self-paced online learning programs in emerging technologies at no cost. This learning content will be offered on DGT’s Bharat Skills platform (https://bharatskills.gov.in), a central repository of updated curriculum, course content, digitally blended content, question banks, and learning videos of all courses under the Craftsmen Training Scheme (CTS) and Crafts Instructor Training Scheme (CITS).

Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, MSDE said, “We are making training on high-demand, emerging technologies available to students, opening up new opportunities for them, and enhancing their employability. Through this initiative with AWS, we are happy that students from ITIs and NSTIs can gain in-demand skills and hands-on experience in important areas such as cloud computing, data annotation, AI, and ML. The support AWS will provide to train the faculty in these technologies will be valuable and empower them to deliver better learning outcomes.”

Sunil PP, Lead—Education, Space, Non-profits, Channels and Alliances, AWS India Private Limited said, “Cloud computing, AI, and ML are transforming nearly every industry, and developing a workforce skilled in these technologies is important to drive innovation and enhance the country’s competitiveness. By offering industry-relevant AWS-based curriculum and learning resources to learners and educators, we are investing in education at large, and developing India’s future digital workforce.”

Recognizing data annotation as a critical aspect of the development of AI and ML projects as it makes datasets more usable and ready for innovation, AWS India will also enable DGT to train individuals in data annotation and labelling, using Amazon SageMaker Ground Truth, a purpose-built service from AWS that easily enables labelling of training data for machine learning at scale. In addition, AWS will provide nominated education institutions under DGT with ready-to-teach cloud computing curriculum that prepares students to pursue industry-recognized certifications and in-demand cloud jobs.

The trend towards cloud adoption has been growing, especially since the pandemic necessitated organizations of all sizes to rapidly transform into digital businesses, innovate their business model, and enable remote working through several cloud-enabled services. According to the research “Asia Pacific Digital Skills Study: The Economic Benefits of a Tech-Savvy Workforce”, 92% of the 769 employers surveyed in India say at least one of the emerging technologies including AI, edge and quantum computing, blockchain, and cryptocurrency, is likely to become a standard part of their future business operations.