Indian institutions start Amazon Web Services' cloud curricula in colleges

At a time when much of the country's $180 billion education sector is going online to adapt to the new reality, Amazon’s cloud computing arm Amazon Web Services (AWS)  is rapidly making inroads to tap the opportunity. It is also helping educational institutes to provide cloud training to students.

Seven higher education institutions in India will adopt cloud computing curricula from the ‘Amazon Web Services Educate’ global initiative into their mainstream college syllabus to help develop the next generation of cloud professionals. The cloud computing content will be offered as part of the undergraduate degree and postgraduate diploma programmes starting in September 2020.

Cloud computing is a top skill sought by companies, as reported by a LinkedIn study conducted annually over the last five years. This new effort by AWS and the educational institutes to integrate cloud computing curricula in mainstream college education will help address the growing requirement for cloud skills in India. It would do this by providing students with the knowledge and competency-based credentials in skills such as cloud architecture, data analytics, cybersecurity, machine learning, and software development.

“Integrating cloud curricula as part of mainstream college education represents a shift in the way the industry and academia can come together to build the next generation of highly-skilled cloud professionals,” said Rahul Sharma, President, India and South Asia Public Sector, Amazon Internet Services Private Limited.

He said the changes that have happened in the last three to four months provide the context of the importance of the availability of cloud and technology for education.

“We believe that this is one of the biggest inflection points of the industry today, especially when you look at education in India,” said Sharma. “So many initiatives are being run to make sure students can be made more relevant to jobs. I think that's where the opportunity for us to make an impact is huge. The important thing is to see how quickly you can (give) access to students for some of these really relevant skills.”

To drive this change, the education institutions offering the newly-designed Bachelor of Technology degree programmes in information technology (IT) and computer science include Chitkara University, Punjab and SRM Institute of Science and Technology, Tamil Nadu. The ASM Group of Institutes in Maharashtra will offer syllabus combined with the AWS Educate cloud curricula for its postgraduate diploma in management – emerging technology.

Dr Sandeep Sancheti, vice-chancellor, SRM Institute of Science and Technology said the initiative would benefit students in terms of job placements. He said it would help in efforts to train them in areas such as artificial intelligence, robotics, big data, Internet of Things and blockchain. “They would have hands-on skills, be industry ready and probably be able to start their own enterprises,” said Sancheti.

All students participating in the degree and diploma programmes will be enrolled in AWS Educate, Amazon's global initiative to provide students with comprehensive resources for building skills in the cloud. They would also be provided with AWS Promotional Credits to gain real-world, hands-on experience using AWS cloud technology.

Supporting this effort is the National Association of Software and Service Companies (Nasscom), an apex body for the technology industry in India. Nasscom will facilitate greater industry participation by engaging key employers in IT and information technology-enabled services (ITES) segments in India, to build a talent pipeline equipped with cloud skills.

Amit Aggarwal, VP and CEO of IT-ITES sector skills council at Nasscom said the pandemic had accelerated the pace at which digital technology was being adopted by enterprises. 

“So there's a massive opportunity in front of us as a country. We are very clear that we want India to become the global hub for digital talent by 2025,” said Aggarwal.

He said the industry expected increased spending on remote work and work from home arrangements. 

There is going to be a huge demand for digital technologies and  “cloud skills” are forecasted to be one of the biggest skills required.