Technology giant IBM is focusing on skilling next generation developers and building an ecosystem of skilling across the country. It has in recent months partnered universities, edu-tech startups, collaborated with the telecom sector skill council, Nasscom and the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) to build a community of developers that would help each other.

“There are plenty of developers across the spectrum in the country. These developers have over time become key influencers, particularly with the advent of cloud, opensource architecture, and so on,” Seema Kumar, Country Leader, Developer Ecosystem and Startups, IBM (India and South Asia), told BusinessLine .

While stating that technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, blockchain, etc, were here to stay, she stressed the importance of upskilling and staying up-to-date as something new or disruptive was happening all the time.

IBM works with universities and startup accelerators in tier-II locations as well. The developer community needs the right level of technology support and intervention, Kumar added, possibly referring to the tie-up with Gradvalley, an edTech startup in Coimbatore.

Vimal Veereshwarayya, founder-Director, Gradvalley, said the startup was focused on building skills around big data analytics and artificial intelligence in non-metros. “We've established an innovation lab and have five projects going. But the apathy is in getting interns. Institutions offer programmes, but the guidance/ learning path is not clear. We are conducting awareness about the learning programmes,” the Gradvalley director said.

Sharing some insights on the market perception to Gradvalley's campaign, he said “our extensive digital marketing campaigns have not yielded the expected results. There were over 3,500 leads between January and mid-March 2018, but over 90 per cent were from the metros. We have visitors on the site, but they do not go beyond ‘seeing’, ‘no clicks’”, he said.

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