Microsoft launches IT academy in Maharashtra

Microsoft Corporation India on Friday launched its first information technology (IT) academy in Maharashtra.

The academy will serve as a pivotal point for imparting IT training to 20,000 teachers and two lakh students across the state in five years.

Microsoft aims to set up 2 IT centres in Pune and Nagpur where students (from class III to class XII) and two lakh teachers would be trained over a five-year period.

The Pune academy is located at the MSCERT Campus, Kumthekar Road.

Microsoft will run a 12-day training programme free-of-cost for participating teachers on the use of technology in teaching students.

Vilasrao Deshmukh, chief minister of Maharashtra, said, "Our partnership with Microsoft compliments the government's focus and vision for empowering the education sector. We believe that through technology we can create a skilled resource base in the state comprising the next generation of professionals. The IT academy, inaugurated today, will encourage early adoption of technologies by both students and teachers across government schools in the state."

Ravi Venkatesan, chairman, Microsoft Corporation, said: "The IT academy in Maharashtra is a key initiative under our partners-in-learning memorandum of understanding, which is aimed at providing state-of-the-art infrastructure to unleash the next wave of IT education in the state."

Apart from setting up of the centres in Pune and Nagpur, the agreement between Microsoft and the state government entails the creation of a localised IT curriculum for students, rolling out of teacher and student scholarship programmes and the setting up of a teachers' portal.