NIIT University (NU) addresses IT industry’s urgent need for Next Gen digitally skilled engineers

​Mumbai, June 13, 2017: Established with a vision to be the role model of learning, research, innovation and sustainability for the knowledge society, the not-for-profit NIIT University (NU), has introduced pioneering Digital Transformation technologies in its curriculum. Towards this, NU has introduced B.Tech Computer Science & Engineering (CSE) program with emphasis on Digital Transformation technologies, to rise-up to the urgent need faced by the IT industry for Next Gen digitally skilled engineers.

The new B.Tech CSE curriculum will be powered by a project based learning methodology which enables the teacher and the group of students to mould the learning style dependent on the profile of the learners and create an environment to provide constructivism and collaborative learning. The B. Tech CSE program, will be embedded with Full Stack Programming, Big Data, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IOT) curriculum to make it more industry relevant. Industry experts will work as mentors, along with NU professors in guiding the students as per the specified methodology. While new students joining B.Tech CSE program will be able to avail the benefit of the new curriculum right from 1st semester, the ongoing batches of students will be imparted accelerated sessions, making them industry-ready, as early as six months from now.

According to a recent release by NASSCOM, the skills of the future would be Big Data Analytics, Cloud & Cybersecurity Services, IoT, Artificial Intelligence and many other Digital Technologies. A huge demand is foreseen for roles such as mobile app development, social media, data scientists & platform engineering. According to a McKinsey report on ‘Technology Jobs & the Future of Work’, digital technologies could contribute $550 billion to $ 1 trillion of economic impact per year in India by the year 2025. According to another renowned survey, 69% of IT leaders expect huge surge in the job market in the next 3 to 5 years due to digital technologies.

Welcoming the initiative Mr. Raman Roy, Chairman, NASSCOM said, “Nasscom is playing a critical role in evangelising digital opportunity for the IT sector, and we will support the industry in facilitating skilling and re-skilling efforts through disruptive models. The sector needs a workforce trained in futuristic digital technologies to transform themselves from IT services providers to digital-transformation partners. Higher education institutes can play a key role here and I would like to welcome the pioneering initiative from NIIT University in creating this new-age talent pool.”

India is already a home to digitally ready talent pool of 500,000 engineers, this demand is expected to increase to over a million engineers trained in digital transformation technologies by 2020. NU will play a pioneering role in creating a pool of engineers trained in Next Gen digital skills. The university will work closely with industry bodies like NASSCOM to ensure that the curriculum is aligned to the industry needs.

Speaking on the initiative, Mr. Mohit Thukral, Executive Council Member at NASSCOM said, “The scenario is changing rapidly. One the one hand, new areas of work are opening up as technology embeds itself more deeply within different industries and at the same time, existing service lines are being transformed through increasing intelligent automation. I am leading a pan-industry taskforce on behalf of NASSCOM on ‘Skilling for the Future’ and in our estimate, at least 50% future jobs would need skills in new Digital Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Anaytics. It is commendable that NIIT University has identified this need and taken it upon itself to create a talent pool with new-age skill sets”

Conceptualized as an institution of excellence, NU provides exceptional education based on the Four Core Principles that make learning Industry-linked, Technology-based, Research-driven and Seamless. NU, is well poised for meeting the emerging needs of the knowledge economy through its focus on building strong industry linkages and a research oriented approach.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof V S Rao, President, NIIT University said, “We have been receiving regular requests from the industry, to develop students with competencies aligned to the requirements of Digital world. Digital Transformation and Automation is changing the way the IT industry looks at talent. A whole new breed of engineers who have gone through the experience of building real applications are in demand. We have therefore introduced Digital Transformation technologies in BTech CSE program to create these new-age engineers that the industry urgently needs.”

Over the years, NU has been building extensive linkages with the industry – it has active collaboration with leading organizations like: Microsoft Research, IBM, WNS and PwC. NU now brings futuristic programs from NIIT to design a B.Tech CSE program that is aligned to what the IT industry today needs. With a legacy of training over 35 million people in IT and other career focused programs since 1981, NIIT is now working towards creating a trained talent pool for the digital economy.

Mr. Vijay Thadani, Co-founder, NIIT University, said “The industry has been clamouring for a new class of engineers with skills in Digital Transformation technologies. I am pleased to see that the Academic Council of NIIT University, has adopted this cutting-age program. With the rise in demand of innovation-driven product engineers, the time is right for NU to pioneer the adoption of an academic framework and a learning methodology that can provide the industry with such talents thus helping bridge the gap between academia and industry.”

NU practises Project Based Learning methodology in which students gain knowledge and skills by working for an extended period of time to investigate and respond to an engaging and complex question, problem, or challenge. A ‘flipped-classroom’ model and a unique mastery learning platform has been integrated into this unique project based learning approach. The students are periodically assessed by the industry mentors and regular feedbacks ensure that each student achieves the desired objective of the subject by the end of the program.