According to academic and industry experts, the technology landscape is changing which has given rise to the need for degree courses and professional training programmes in Artificial Intelligence.
There are no full developed degree courses available in the Artificial Intelligence sector within our country besides a few short term courses even when the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has already introduced AI as a subject which is an elective.
Varun Dhamija, Vice President of Pearson Professional Programs (PPP) says “In the digital era and rapidly-evolving business landscape, AI is influencing a range of industries and altering the job roles. The world is looking at AI for its widespread applications in almost every industry and is considered to be the next big technological shift in the industrial and smartphone revolution. The need of the hour is to make AI education more focused and easily available.”
While adding to that, he continued, “According to our recent survey, 60 pc Indians believe that the world is shifting to a model where people participate in education over a lifetime which makes it age agnostic. More and more seasoned professionals, young learners and mid-level employees now realize the need for upskilling and formal training in AI and other areas to keep pace with the dynamic job requirements. Given this backdrop, we will definitely see a demand for not only short term or vocational education, but also for AI-specific full-time courses.”
Samit Deb, Chief People Officer, Birlasoft stated: “with great demand for good talent, it is now required more than ever to have managers and leaders spend more time with their people, guiding, coaching and training them in addition to all the technology and AI courses that people take up online.” He continued, “There is a huge spike in the demand of AI-related courses in universities and skilled employees and this gap can only be filled by co-creation of an ecosystem where industry stalwarts and academicians come together by giving more industrial training and internships and by adding new AI-related courses, respectively.”
Last month, UAE inaugurated the world’s first artificial intelligence university in Abu Dhabi named Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) which is offering the Artificial Intelligence courses for students who are undergraduate. Its first masters and Ph.D. programs are scheduled to begin on the 20th of September next year for which the applications are being accepted right now.
Anil K Jain, a professor at Michigan University and Board of Trustees at MBZUAI told PTI that “There are huge differences between degree courses solely focused on AI and standalone AI courses by universities, colleges, coaching schools, and other private entities.”
Srikanth NR, Managing Director, Human resources at Accenture Advanced Technology Centres in India said “every industry – from banking to automotive to retail – is being disrupted by Artificial Intelligence. AI is changing the way we work and transforming how we do business. We believe that continuous learning is the only learning method that can help organizations cope with the rapid changes”.
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