BANGALORE: Accenture, Cisco and Quest Alliance have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Directorate General of Training (DGT) within the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship to offer a digital skilling program to all students enrolled in industrial training institutes (ITIs) via the government of India’s Bharat Skills portal. The organisations are teaming to equip 1.5 million youth across India with skills for the digital economy.
As a part of a year-long collaboration, the three organisations have also signed MoUs with the state governments of Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam to roll out a comprehensive blended learning program. This program will cover more than 100,000 students from 227 ITIs across these states. The training modules will include online self-learning via the Bharat Skills portal as well as in-classroom training.
The in-classroom program will deliver more than 240 hours of training to impart skills for digital literacy and fluency; workplace readiness and career management skills.
“The digital economy is creating opportunities — with artificial intelligence alone estimated to add more than US$1 trillion to the Indian economy by 2035 — yet an unintended consequence of advanced technologies is further marginalisation of people, as humans and machines work side by side,” said Kshitija Krishnaswamy, Director of Corporate Citizenship at Accenture in India.
Accenture collaboration with Cisco and Quest Alliance is part of Accenture’s Skills to Succeed initiative, which aims to create employment opportunities by leveraging digital innovation.
“Digital skilling has been one of Cisco’s top priorities, and with this partnership, we are taking our portfolio and partnerships to the vocational sector. We look forward to expanding our partnership with Accenture, our global channel partner, to our social programs”, said Harish Krishnan, Managing Director of Public Affairs and Strategic Engagements at Cisco India.
Digitisation is accelerating the transformation of every industry in India. With the majority of the skilled workforce coming from the vocational sector, one needs to ensure that the students in ITIs are digitally fluent and well-equipped to enter the workforce.
“Building collaborations of this kind between the DGT, the government of India, Accenture and Cisco is an integral part of the Quest mission”, said Aakash Sethi, CEO of Quest Alliance.
All three organisation want to work and bring youth with digital skills, which will help them thrive in the 21st century.
