YCombinator backed Indian Startup Skill-Lync launches a first of its kind master’s autonomous driving course in India
Chennai: YCombinator backed, India headquartered startup ‘Skill-Lync’ announces the launch of a special master’s course for Autonomous Driving. The startup provides job leading courses for Mechanical, Electrical, Civil and Computer Science Engineering students in India and across the world. This unique course is designed to give students a hands-on approach to learn and develop model-based control strategies for driver-assist systems.
This special course offers a good experience to the students following a balanced approach with both in-depth theoretical and on-hand practical knowledge. It will help them get comfortable with control strategies for driver assist systems and teach them how to develop those strategies in a simulated environment. The program is divided into 5 modules, each one of which is accompanied by projects to add on to the practical approach, which will give a better understanding to the students of what they are learning. The modules are as follows:-
Applying Computer Vision for Autonomous Vehicle,
Practical Artificial Intelligence For Autonomous Vehicle,
Localization, Mapping & SLAM,
Path Planning & trajectory Optimization,
Autonomous Vehicle Controls
Commenting on the course Surya Narayanan, Co-founder & CEO, Skill-Lync Said, “As a whole, the automotive industry is shifting to develop Futuristic vehicles that inculcate concepts like Autonomous or driverless cars, and fully electric cars, but sadly there are no educational institutions in India or across the world that are focused on teaching the technical aspects specific to such domains. At Skill-Lync our goal is to empower students with technical skills that are required for the future. Companies have started looking for engineers who have inter-disciplinary skills. Our master’s course in Autonomous driving has been designed taking into account the needs of these companies. Engineers from Computer Science, Mechanical, Electrical & Electronics engineering can take this course and understand different aspects of the autonomous vehicle development process. The course is designed by leading industry experts in the field of ML, AI, and driverless car development in order to aid Students with relevant interests helping them get equipped for the future”.
Officially founded in April 2018 by Sarangarajan V(CTO) and Suryanarayanan P(CEO), both had their first hand impact due to the lack of quality and application-based learning in the Indian undergraduate education system. Skill-Lync was earlier started out as a YouTube channel to share engineering tips, but today it is an online training course for mechanical engineering candidates. It operates three different types of courses, ranging from one-off modules to full-time curriculums.
Interestingly, there is no other platform in the world that focuses on teaching in-depth technical skills to non-software engineering students for Autonomous Driving. With this course, the students will have a complete hands-on experience to develop an ADAS system from Level 1 automation to Level 3.
The focus in this course is to make the students finish the projects as a part of each module. The whole Master coursework consists of 10 projects and 30 assignments spread across an 8 month period. Apart from the on-demand videos that the students can access, they have live 1-1 video conference sessions with the instructor in order to get their doubts clarified. As a part of the course, students also end up working on projects with the aid of industry-oriented software tools such as Python, Tensorflow, Kras, MATLAB-Simulink, Carmaker and experience different control strategies within their projects, Such as LQR, Rule-based, PID, state-flow, etc.
“Any student in a Mechanical engineering, electrical and electronics engineering or computer engineering curriculum can take this course. Apart from this, working professionals who would like to shift their career path towards autonomous vehicles or anyone with a desire to work in the automotive controls domain can also take up this course. In addition to the 5 modules that are currently present in the curriculum, we are planning to add 3-4 additional modules that will cover the next wave of driverless car development ” said, Sarangarajan, Co-founder & CTO, Skill-Lync.
Skill-Lync is backed by global investors including Better Capital’s – Vaibhav Domkundwar, YCombinator and Founder of Gmail & YC Partner – Paul Buchheit.