SCIENCE & TECHOLOGY BUREAU
CHENNAI, MARCH 14
Indian Institute of Technology Madras has launched a ‘Career Back 2 Women (CB2Women)’ initiative through its Digital Skills Academy to skill women who aspire to return to a technical profession after a break in their career.
Overall, as many as 150 hours of training will be offered to skill the women on their journey back to their careers. Candidates will get a choice to opt for any level as certificates will be issued for each level.
The IIT-M Digital Skills Academy is using latest platforms and has tied-up with the Forensic Intelligence Surveillance and Security Technologies (FISST) to offer this programme.
Launching the CB2Women (CB2W) programme, Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT-M, said, “Many women sacrifice their active careers for various personal reasons and desire to return to their profession when their family commitments are over. However, in the IT field, the technology changes are so rapid that they are unable to get back to their careers as their skills are probably outdated. Despite this, their industry experience and knowledge about IT are immense and can be useful to many IT companies if they can fit into current requirements immediately. IIT-M is happy to pioneer this programme from Digital Skills Academy at IIT-M, to help them get back to work and retrieve their careers.”
The course is being offered with faculty from IIT-M, Indian Institute of Information Technology Design and Manufacturing Kancheepuram, Industry experts from GITAA and GUVI, IIT Madras incubated startups and Forensic Intelligence Surveillance and Security Technologies (FISST). Job placement assistance will be provided to all candidates who complete the Advance module in selected tracks.
Commenting on this launch of CB2W, Amit Aggarwal, VP and CEO, IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council, NASSCOM, said, “Women form a substantial portion of the IT-BPM industry, perhaps among the largest percentages in the formal sector. However, in the new and emerging technologies, where job growth is going to be faster, the percentage of women is currently lower. For example, while India has the second largest Artificial Intelligence workforce in the world, only 22% of them are women. Correcting this imbalance needs multiple interventions, such as collaboration between Government, Industry and Academia, and active engagement with young women throughout their education and into their working lives. CB2W from IIT-M’ Digital Skills Academy is a progressive step that would help in getting more women into STEM occupations and I look forward to the positive impact this will make in the years to come.”
Digital Skills Academy, IIT-M, also plans to offer more courses at various levels for students and working professionals in association with NASSCOM and in partnership with training companies incubated at IIT-M Research Park and industry partners.
Sharing this thoughts, Lakshmi Narayanan, Co-Founder Cognizant Technologies and Chairman, Digital Skills Academy, IIT-M, said, “Moderating growth in the technology services sector is primarily due to lack of skilled capacity. This effort by IIT Madras’ Digital Skills Academy is aimed at upskilling capacity, at scale, that has been dormant. I am confident that the depth and rigor of these programs will create highly talented and competitive capacity that the IT industry badly needs.”
Prof. K. Mangala Sunder, Head, Digital Skills Academy, IIT-M, said, “A large fraction of women who have mastered IT skills in the past and had to take a break in their professional career for various reasons, would be encouraged by the current program to reskill themselves with newer and state-of-the-art technology details and will be able to secure satisfactory jobs in technology platforms and programming languages/software engineering. IIT-M works with NASSCOM IT-ITeS Sector Skill council to ensure that right industry partners are involved in training and faculty from premier institutions provide fundamental knowledge to all learners.”
Speaking about the Courses details, C. Mohan Ram, Chief Mission Integrator and Innovator, FISST, said, “All participants will take ‘Back To Technical Track (BTCUBE),’ which is a 20 hour programme that will bring them up-to-date on technologies and demystifies latest jargons. At the end of this program, they will have a choice to select a specialization. There are 4 tracks offered initially. Track 1 – Data Science and Big Data, Track 2 – Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML), Track 3 – Cyber Security with Digital Forensics, Track 4 – Software Engineering with Programming in Python with MongoDB. Each track has a Basic (40 hours) and Advanced modules (90 hours),” a release from IIT-M said.
