‘Skills’ is one of the most critical foundation elements of a nation’s economic growth. The world is on the cusp of Industry 4.0 and Indian technology sector hopes to fuel this change. The need of an industry ready and job-ready workforce has never been more significant.  

Unemployment among the youth has also been increasing. Over 60% of the 8 lakh+ engineers graduating every year remain unemployed (Source: AICTE). On the other hand,39% employers encounter challenges to attract quality talent. It is evident that an enormous gap exists between the skills available and employability. 

NASSCOM Foundation’s ‘Skills Initiative’ works to bridge the gap. The initiative provides employability focused skills to the youth from tier 2 and tier 3 colleges across India. It utilizes CSR funds to train the young job aspirants on current and future industry skill needs like Big Data, AI, CRM (non-voice) etc. 

NASSCOM Foundation works closely with the IT Sector Skills Council – NASSCOM SSC. All training curriculum is in line with the ‘Qualification Packs’ prescribed for similar skills by the SSC. 

The Foundation helps the donor organizations finalize various aspects of the Skills-based CSR intervention. These include skill-need discovery, course curriculum and the region of intervention. It next finds the right training partners to deliver the course to the youth from the region. The foundation also helps support the placement of the trained individuals. 

Over the past few years, NASSCOM Foundation has been able to train over 2 lakh people in diverse skills.