Govt may partially fund Nasscom’s Futureskills platform for general use

The Indian government is likely to partially finance a skilling service platform that the IT industry group Nasscom created last year and now plans to open it up for general use, a person familiar with the matter told TechCircle.

Nasscom, or the National Association of Software and Services Companies, is in talks with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to get funds for its FutureSkills platform, the person said, asking not to be named. The person didn’t give any details of the discussions.

Nasscom had launched FutureSkills last year to help train employees of the member companies. It offers training in emerging technologies such as robotic process automation, internet of things, virtual reality, cloud computing, big data analytics and 3D printing.

The development was first reported by The Economic Times, citing BVR Mohan Reddy, executive vice chairman at IT company Cyient and a member of Nasscom’s executive council.

Reddy told the newspaper that the next step of the platform is to shift an IT ministry project into the business-to-consumer mode and that the government will fund a substantial part of this move.

According to the report, Reddy is also working with the government think tank Niti Aayog on a digital skilling roadmap to determine strategies for digitizing the educational system.

According to the person cited above, Futureskills is working at upgrading the skills of 1 million individuals and is also planning to take the platform online for college students.

The planned move will shore up the government’s Skill India Mission that aims to train 400 million people by 2022, but has only hit the 25-million mark thus far. The government is also considering incentivizing younger people to opt for courses of their choosing by crafting skill vouchers and skill wallets.