Ministry of Education, AICTE and AWS to Upskill Students in India in Cloud Computing and Machine Learning

The Ministry of Education is working with Amazon Web Services (AWS) with an aim to impart cloud computing and machine learning (ML) skills to higher education students in India. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), a statutory body under the Ministry, and Amazon Internet Services Private Limited (AISPL), which undertakes the resale and marketing of AWS in India. This new collaboration extends the Ministry’s efforts to enable students with critical technology skills, and strengthen the focus to build a future-ready digitally-skilled workforce in India. Thousands of AICTE-affiliated colleges in the country will extend this initiative to benefit students.

Dr. Buddha Chandrashekhar, Chief Coordinating Officer, AICTE, said, “Digital skilling on future technologies at a national scale is a key priority for the Ministry of Education. Skilling our students in cloud computing and machine learning is especially crucial to not only ensure employability for our students, but also to build capacity in these critical skills that will define the industries of tomorrow. We are pleased that an industry leader like AWS is committed to work with AICTE to support the Indian government’s vision for skilling to create an Atmanirbhar Bharat.”

Sunil PP, Lead—Education, Space, and Nonprofits, Amazon Internet Services Private Limited, AWS India and South Asia, said, “Over the course of the pandemic, we have seen organizations of all sizes accelerate their digital transformation plans by several years, driving an increased need for employers and their workers to advance skills training for cloud computing, cybersecurity, and machine learning. AWS recognizes this as a national priority, and today’s announcement of the MoU with the Ministry of Education is part of our continued commitment to support the government in developing India’s technology talent and strengthening the country’s digital economy.”

Through the MoU, AWS will provide students access to AWS Educate (www.awseducate.com), a program that offers self-paced online cloud learning resources and labs, designed to help people learn, practice, and evaluate cloud skills. The program’s easy-to-navigate and adaptive user experience guides learners to targeted training content based on their knowledge, goals and interests. Learners can register on AWS Educate with just an email address.

In addition, AWS will  support the goal of skilling students in cloud computing and ML through the AWS DeepRacer Student League, launched today. The AWS DeepRacer Student League is aimed at introducing ML to students in higher education, and inspiring them to explore the technology. The competition provides participants an interesting and fun way to learn ML, and experiment with it by building autonomous driving applications. This is the second AWS DeepRacer initiative focused on students in India after the AWS DeepRacer Women’s League in 2021, and is being held with support from the Ministry of Education, AICTE, and Intel. The competition is open to students above 18 years who are currently enrolled in higher educational institutions in India.

Earlier this year, the research report “Building Digital Skills for the Changing Workforce” – prepared by strategy and economics consulting firm AlphaBeta, and commissioned by AWS – noted that four of the top six most in-demand skills in India by 2025 will be cloud-related. The report found that the ability to use cloud-based tools will be the most in-demand skill required by employers in India by 2025, followed by technical support skills, cybersecurity skills, advanced digital marketing, artificial intelligence (AI) and ML, and cloud architecture design. The importance and impact of the cloud-related skills are further underscored by their wide use across industry sectors, as employers surveyed in the research expect these skills to be in high demand in sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, fintech, media, and entertainment.