Google For India: Tech giant beefs up its vocational skills drive

While laying the roadmap of its India journey with 7th Google for India event, Google has announced multiple initiatives for pushing its education drive in the world's second fastest growing economy.

Reiterating its commitment to use its earlier announced $10 billion fund for India in digitization, the US-based tech giant has also revealed that it is partnering with Coursera to launch ‘Google Career Certificates’ wherein the courses will cost between Rs 6,000 to Rs 8,000.

The courses, which will also have scholarship options, will jointly offer new courses for students to enhance skills for digital careers such as IT Support, IT Automation, Project Management, Data Analytics and UX Design. It plans to reach one million users with these courses. This is in addition to rolling out ‘Google Career Support’ to help college graduates with new employment opportunities.

Emphasising the need to expand the base of digitally-trained talent that is ready for job opportunities in high growth areas, Google announced the launch of 100,000 scholarships for Google Career Certificates collaborating with NASSCOM Foundation, Tata STRIVE, and SafeEducate who will help in identifying underserved learners across the country for a free enrolment to a Google Career Certificate of their choice.

Recognizing the importance of connecting job seekers with employers who have an ongoing demand for these skills, Google has also joined hands with an initial set of companies that recognise the certificates. Along with Google India, Accenture in India, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Genpact, Times Internet, and Better.com will recognise the certificates, and more will be added to the employer pool.

Speakers at the event this year were Prabhakar Raghavan, who is Senior Vice President for Search at Google along with Pandu Nayak who is Google Fellow & Vice President, for Search. In addition to this, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan also spoke at the event along with Rajeev Chandrashekhar, who is Union Minister of State at MeITY.

“It is overwhelming to see Google is looking to launch an employer consortium to facilitate employment after a candidate completes a Google Career Certificates course," said Pradhan.