Last week, the digital economy skills training start-up Simplilearn tied up with IIT Madras Pravartak to empower youth with essential digital skills for success in the digital economy. Kashyap Dalal, co-founder & COO, Simplilearn, told FE that there is a growing demand for digital skills in India and abroad.
“With this collaboration, Simplilearn and IIT Madras Pravartak will introduce programmes focused on full-stack development (FSD)-MERN, cloud computing and product management. The aim is to upskill working professionals and freshers, so that they can embrace the ever-changing digital landscape with cutting-edge expertise in product management, FSD and UI/UX domains,” he said.
Dalal added that FSD-MERN has emerged as one of the most coveted fields in the digital landscape. According to the jobs portal Indeed, the demand for full-stack developers currently exceeds 10,000 positions.
The first batch of the six-month FSD-MERN programme will start in December 2023. Because of the tie-up with an IIT Madras body, learners have the option of visiting the campus and have face-to-face interactions with faculty members.
IIT Madras Pravartak is a Section 8 company housing the Technology Innovation Hub on Sensors, Networking, Actuators and Control Systems. It is funded by the Department of Science and Technology, and hosted by IIT Madras.
Over 5 million learners
Dalal added that Simplilearn has enrolled more than 5 million learners, and most of these learners have come in the last couple of years. In July 2021, the learner count was over 2 million. It touched the 3-million mark in September 2021. “This number then grew manifold, and earlier this year we crossed the 5-million count,” he said. “Today, an increasing number of professionals are utilising their time by learning online to further their careers. Our campaigns like #JobGuarantee as well as the #AmbitionCannotBeLockedDown have contributed to the growth of learner base.”
Last week, it launched its newest campaign called #GetAheadWithSimplilearn, which showcases the career impact that online learning can deliver. Dalal said that the intent is to share real stories of real learners, and what they were able to achieve by taking up Simplilearn’s programmes.
During the lockdown, a lot of employees starting learning online – as they had more time at hand – and this trend is continuing even with the hybrid work environment. “Upskilling remains one of the key factors boosting career growth for professionals. Despite the reopening of offline institutions, online learning continues to gain popularity amongst students and professionals, especially given its location-agnostic nature and flexibility,” he said. “About 35% of our learners per month are repeat learners or have come through referrals, and this is a testament that learners do see value in online upskilling. In addition to our focus on job-relevant upskilling, our free skill development initiative, SkillUp, boosted our numbers.”
Dalal added that one of the reasons why its online upskilling programmes are almost as effective as offline ones is because these are delivered via a high-engagement bootcamp-style model, and are developed in association with industry partners like Microsoft, AWS, IBM and Facebook, making them very relevant and timely. “We aren’t limited to short-term upskilling, but also offer postgraduate programmes in collaboration with institutions of higher education, such as IIT Roorkee, IIIT-B, Purdue University, Caltech Center for Technology and Management Education, and UMass Amherst,” he said. “Also, while the majority of the learner base consists of individual B2C learners, we also offer outcome-driven corporate training and upskilling programmes for organisations.”