The Minister of Education recently launched the AI for India campaign to evaluate, train, provide internships, allocate projects, and certify and employ 2.5 million citizens. The campaign is powered by a private tech giant and supported by the Ministry of Education and the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
A government official stated that the AI for India initiative aims to bridge the gap between the supply and demand matrix in worldwide tech talent with Indian students. He added that they are changing the educational policies to skill and up-skill the youth and make them future-ready. AI for India will guarantee over 2 million internships, over 50,000 industries, and 36,000 institutions for digital India.
According to a report from the government’s AI portal, the campaign is divided into five events:
National Future Engineering Scholarship Examination: targets increasing AI adoption in classes 8-12, undergraduate/postgraduate levels, and among citizens that want to train in emerging technologies.
All India Skill to Scale Avenue: targets individuals that want to achieve the industry skill set requirement level for AI.
AI Ideathon: seeks the development of AI, cloud, or data-based solutions.
All India Data Engineering Quiz Competition: aims to broaden knowledge on emerging technologies across topics and verticals.
All India Jonathon for Cloud, Data, and AI Aspirants: through this, citizens that have participated in any of the four events will be able to seek positions in 100,000 jobs from industries in the country.
The campaign is a part of the government’s ABCDEFGHI programme. It was set up to train students in the areas of AI, blockchain, cybersecurity, data analytics and intelligence, extended reality (XR), electronics, energy solutions, full-stack development, gamification, GitHub, HTML5, human-computer interaction, and the Internet of Things (IoT). The government aims to train around 10 million students in these areas for 3 to 6 months.
In another bid to increase the adoption of emerging technologies, the Council for Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) and the Indian Institute of Technology of Delhi (IIT- Delhi) in May announced they would design a curriculum for schools that include robotics, AI, machine learning, and data science. The curriculum is for grades 9 to 12 in schools affiliated with the CISCE board.
IIT-Delhi’s technology innovation hub, I-Hub Foundation for Cobotics (IHFC), and CISCE signed a memorandum to carry out the project. As OpenGov Asia reported, IHFC would help CISCE cut the syllabus to “reinforce 21st-century skills” and achieve targets set out in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Moreover, officials stated that they plan to upgrade the current STEM courses in line with NEP 2020.
A representative from IHFC stressed the need to strengthen the country’s capacity to master emerging technologies. As IHFC develops the curriculum, it will reflect the principles of experiential learning and aspects of theory. IHFC could play an important role in carrying out the project in about 2,700 schools affiliated with CISCE by providing guidance and technical expertise. Prime aspects of the project’s vision, according to the project director of IHFC, are nurturing teamwork, innovation, and knowledge to bridge the gaps between young engineering students and potential future robot enthusiasts.
