Kerala targets to train 1000 students in AR, VR by end of 2020

Two skilling programmes for students and working professionals will be rolled out in January 2020
To equip students with new-age skills and make them industry-ready, the Kerala government plans to produce 1,000 Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) developers across India by the end of 2020.
Kerala Startup Mission (KSUM) - the central agency for entrepreneurship and incubation developments of the state government, in collaboration with ICT Academy of Kerala (the skilling arm of the government), will introduce two skilling programmes named Beginner's Course and Intermediate Course in January 2020.
The Beginner's Course will be exclusively for students with a duration of three-four months whereas professionals can apply for the Intermediate Programme, which will be of six-eight months. The programmes are likely to be semi-online in nature with candidates requiring to attend two classes a week at ICT Academy's centres in Kochi and Trivandrum.
"The impact of AR and VR is highly prominent in today's world. While several new jobs in these new-age areas have already opened up, with the way technology is advancing rapidly, the number of these jobs will grow in a few years. This initiative aims at creating a pool of skilled manpower in such innovative technologies and also fuel the AR/VR startup ecosystem in the country," said Tom Thomas, project director, operations, KSUM.
Unity Technologies, an US-based real-time software development company will offer a platform to these students and professionals. After a MoU signed by Unity with KSUM, an Accelerator Programme was initiated in October. Seven startups from Kerala, Pune, Bengaluru and Delhi NCR have been selected to be offered government support and industry exposure.
"The startups create AR/VR products and services. We support them to get projects from corporates, state and central governments," said Thomas, while talking to Education Times at the sidelines of Unite 2019 held in Kochi.
Roli Pandey and Moitreyee Goswami, two Pune-based entrepreneurs whose startup has been accelerated by KSUM, have built an app called Zucate. The app scans Marathi, English and Hindi textbooks and converts them into AR/VR forms on computers, tablets and smartphones. It is set to be officially launched in December 2019 on iOS and PlayStore.
Highlighting the current unemployment scenario in India, Thomas said that encouraging the youth to develop leadership skills and foray into entrepreneurship can be a solution to the problem. "It is only a matter of time that various existing jobs will get dissolved. Thus, it is vital to train students as per Industry 4.0 and also support startups so that enough jobs are generated in the country."