Impact of digital skilling on getting industry-ready conference defines the future of higher education

IBM and Dataquest, Cybermedia, organized a conference on the impact of digital skilling on getting industry-ready.

Sunil Rajguru, Editor, DQ, welcomed the audience. He said this event is about how skilling is going to impact India. Technology has always been changing. It has been accelerating, and is in high-speed mode. Today, we talk of technology as tech-celeration. Drones have already started. China and the USA now have robo taxis. There are also certain institutes who have been doing great things for the past centuries.

Tech-celeration is also seeing a jump in the education industry. We are talking about tech skills, digital skills, upgrading students and teachers, etc. The new era has already begun, and there is the advent of online learning, etc. Everything is getting education. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, has a sarcastic view of the corporate world. He had said that the largest industry in the world is going to be the online education industry. Initially, it was laughed at, but all that changed! In the world that we are living, we are going to be educating, learning, and re-learning, etc. Your world will be expanded to the entire world.

Today, we are seeing 100% digitization, 100% digital, etc. Today, no industry can stay away from data. Every day, millions of devices are transmitting trillions of data. You will need data crunching, AI, etc., in every field. The focus is now on digital skills. The government is also catching up. India is the only country where almost the entire country has taken up Aadhar.

India is currently ahead, digitally. UPI is now one of the largest financial systems in the world. The new education policy came out recently. AICTE is also stepping into the future. It is offering hundreds of courses. Ministry of Skills has also stepped up. Everything that the techies can think of, is now coming up. In future, upskilling and digital upskilling is going to be a lifelong affair.

Constant innovation

Deepak Gupta, Partner & Practice Leader (Custom & Exponential Tech); IBM Master Inventor & member of IDT, Location Leader (NCR-Noida), presented the keynote. He said that things are changing very fast, and every month. Frameworks are also changing very fast. Learning is not going to stop! Skilling has now transformed into upskilling, cross-skilling, etc. Constant innovation is currently happening. Industries and organizations across the world are coming up with new innovations all the time. We are now seeing the advent of a win-win-win culture.

Today, 75% of organizations are going to have 10+ clouds in their ecosystem. Students also have access to a lot of things. Curiosity levels are now very high. The Internet has percolated across the nation. People already have access to a lot of information. What's missing is the roadmap children that will need to take. How relevant will be the work they will be doing in the future. We are providing relevant skills across clouds, organizations, etc.



Experts are handpicking topics that are relevant for people. We are looking at relevant future skills. The entire partnerships and the media that we are using to deliver these courses is also changing. Learning never stops!

Impact of digital skilling 

Ms. Mona Bharadwaj, Global University Programs Leader, India, said IBM's relationship with the academia has been long standing. The impact of digital skills is very relevant for getting industry-ready. It does need good institutes to bring good students to the fore, citing the example of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the former President of India.

Skilling is very important today. The Jobs of Tomorrow report has seven professional clusters emerging. These are: data and AI, engineering, cloud computing, people and culture, product development, marketing, sales and content. There is a dearth of people who can take on these job roles. India has a huge percentage of people under 20 years. There are huge challenges and opportunities, as well. Students can now go on to become the manpower that can serve the world.

IBM has focus skills of build-a-thon, such as Red Hat, applied data science, data analytics, and AI.Today, there are online/digital-based skill development classrooms. The future of learning is going to classrooms that are immersed in technology, not confined to a single location, interactive, and personalized. The blended form of learning has had a lot of acceptance today. Technology is also making everything interactive and personalized.

The future of work is projected to be flat, transparent, on-demand, and competitive. National Education Policy 2020 has set a steep target of 50% Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) by 2035. Lot of online skills are now being designed. The focus is more on getting students to become skilled via online.

Faculty empowers students

Delivering the keynote, Dr. Chandrasekhar Buddha, Chief Coordinating Officer, AICTE, said there was some imbalance, before I met IBM. IBM has the maximum patents from the USA. The entire globe has now become more digital in nature. IBM is playing a major role in skilling and upskilling. We need to give better opportunities to our students, especially from IBM. IBM is also giving quality content to people. We are trying to understand the progress of technology and how that can change the face of the world. There are millions of students and engineers, who will largely benefit.

The NEP 2020 focuses on concentrating on the research side. There are companies that invest back in research, especially IBM. There is advanced technological patenting being done by IBM. The faculty is the centre of the entire education universe. Students will get empowered by the various faculties. We also need to give opportunities to faculties in African countries. We can be a mentor to them. We can transfer knowledge to African nations.

We are now taking education forward. We are also requesting for Centres of Excellence from the various companies. The thought processes of students are also changing by doing this. The faculty members are also requested to learn about advanced future technologies. We need to also look at what's happening at the outskirts of education campuses. We need to identify the various problems of villages, and try to solve them. We need to implement new methods and technologies. We also need to give problem situations to the various institutes, and let them come up with solutions.

Today, youngsters are doing a lot of customization to meet their needs. We need to work together for the future. We also need to have innovation on the research side. Faculties also need to go, and work for the companies and understand how they do things. We need to also identify 10-15 students from the smallest slums, and try and teach them something. We need to ensure that students learn how to be creative.

We are now coming up with the universal bank of credits. We need to put all the things there. The understanding of skilling and upskilling is going up very fast. Languages also need to become the strength of Indians. We are also translating videos into various Indian languages. Education is all about creating a solution. We need to provide education in all formats and languages. We will try to fund organizations so that we can do good for mankind. 

The students are lagging today because of the learning methods we are providing to them. Every student is unique, and so is their learning pattern. Learning pattern differs for each student. We need to change all that.

Deep learning models needed

Sachindra Joshi, Distinguished Engineer, Conversations Platform, IBM Research India, said there are 3,000 researchers across 14 locations at IBM. We also have a strong university research ecosystem, and multiple open-source projects. Models at IBM are also being built around languages. Data is largely coming from the USA and Europe. We have AI apps that are looking at trusted data, language, and reasoning. We are also working on hybrid cloud and quantum computing.

We are now taking the conversations everywhere. They may be goal- or task-oriented. The experiences are currently limiting. How are conversation models being built today? Rule-based dialog models are also being built. However, we are not restricted by the chat bots. We are having deep learning-based dialog models. There is no manual involvement. It requires enormous GPUs and petaflops of computing. Academic research is more of deep learning-based data. The industry focus is NLU (ML-based) and DM (rule-based). Examples are IBM Watson Assistant, etc.

Deep learning-based models provide ground responses on something we trust. We have grounding dialogs on flowcharts. IBM has the FlowDial, or flowchart grounded dialogs dataset. We also have grounding dialogs on documents.

There are also bootstrap industrial models using deep learning models. The IBM Watson Assistant has the ability to upload the conversation logs and give intent recommendations. It is an intelligent virtual agent. IBM also created new fan experiences using AI and hybrid cloud for first-ever spectator-less US Open Tennis, among others.

SkillsBuild available

Dr. Mani Madhukar, Program Manager, University Relations, IBM India, said that there is the IBM SkillsBuild available for high school and college educators. AI and ML apps are changing the world. Self-led course offerings allow teachers, or students, to chart their own course. You can also explore the various course options. There are offerings for data science, security, and cloud.

Automation is another area, as well as quantum computing. Lot of content is available at no cost, from IBM, to make learning easy and affordable for you. We also offer badges to those who have completed specific courses. You can access job openings based on the course taken. You can also access the geographies where the jobs are available.

We also have the project build-a-thon for faculty members to enrich skills in emerging technologies. You can choose from any problem statement, and try to develop solutions. You can have a CLA with IBM, as well as an MoU.

Impact of digital skilling

This was followed by a fireside chat on the impact of digital skilling on getting industry-ready. The participants were: Dr. Sandeep K Raghuwanshi, Associate Prof., Samrat Ashok Technological Institute, Vidisha, Saurabh Sharma, Associate Prof., Model Institute of Engineering and Technology, Jammu, and Ms. Charu Agarwal, Associate Prof., Ajay Kumar Garg Engineering College, Noida. Dr. Mani Madhukar, IBM India, was the moderator.

Saurabh Sharma said that technologies are changing very fast today. IBM Skills Network has been associated with their institute. Technology is at the heart of every successful business. You need a workforce equipped with deep skills in the latest technologies, and you need an engaged workforce. IBM Skills Network gives you that edge.

Next, what do the educators see as a gap? Ms. Charu Agarwal said that they feel there is a lack of licensed software. We also need theoretical knowledge and practical information. We further need industry support for all of this.

Low code or no code makes learning easier. How can students benefit? Saurabh Sharma said we get flexibility and no location-based constraint. Blended mode of learning is changing things. Students can grab anything at any place. His institution has so far achieved eight badges.

And, how did the teachers find build-a-thon experience? Dr. Sandeep K. Raghuvanshi said we need to have structured content. We were getting hands-on experience. The biggest takeaway for us is to get hands-on experience. Earlier, we were focused on the context of the programming language, rather than problem solving. We can now focus on the problem-solving part.

Finally, how did the experiential learning help? Ms. Charu Agarwal said project learning was helpful. She can explain to students in a more detailed manner. Dr. Sandeep K. Raghuvanshi noted that they can offer some courses that can be put through the IBM portal. Saurabh Sharma added that they have adopted blended learning. These were in AI/ML and cyber security. This semester, they are going for cloud computing.

Bridging gap

Ms. Akansha Singh, Talent Acquisition Leader, Cognitive Solutions Research, IBM Cloud & Systems Labs, University, ISA, remarked that IBM does get a lot of technology graduates, but there is still a gap in the employability. We need to bridge the gap between what is being taught in colleges, and what is being required by industries. The faculties are the important connecting dots. You are helping students to upskill.

Shirish Pandey, Red Hat Academy, remarked that India and China are their biggest markets. We offer courses on cloud, DevOps, java, etc. We look at making students employable.

Ms. Mona Bharadwaj presented the vote of thanks.