Looking for AI Upskilling? This Govt-NASSCOM Initiative is Offering Over 80 Free & Paid Courses

More than 80 courses on Artificial Intelligence are being offered under a joint initiative by the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY) and NASSCOM to equip those with the skills necessary to thrive and stand out in today’s competitive job market.

These courses, available both free of charge and as paid options, are accessible on the website.

On the Future Skill Prime’s website, the courses section seamlessly directs individuals to the downloadable PDF course catalogue. Simultaneously, visitors will encounter the ‘Trending Courses & Pathway’ segment, aiding in streamlined navigation and selection.

This section offers diverse options including domain, course provider, NASSCOM certification, content type, eligibility for GoI incentives, delivery mode, and payment type—allowing interested individuals to refine their preferences. Moreover, users can sort their choices based on duration, and cost (ranging from low to high or high to low), ensuring a tailored and user-friendly experience.

Like the comprehensive catalogue, all information is accessible within the ‘Trending Courses & Pathway’ section. It encompasses industry-relevant courses focusing on emerging technologies such as AI, big data analytics, blockchain, cloud computing, cybersecurity, Internet of Things, web and mobile development, virtual reality, and various other cutting-edge fields.

A long list of ‘course providers’ on the same page includes major industry champions such as Google, Microsoft, Accenture, AWS, Cisco, Oracle, Coding Ninja and others.

For example, ‘Google Cloud Generative AI’ is a beginner-friendly, practical training series spanning 10 courses. The programme, offered by Google Cloud, is designed to impart technical expertise. The curriculum encompasses an introduction to Large Language Models, Responsible AI, Image Generation, Encoder-Decoder Architecture, Attention Mechanism, Creation of Image Captioning Models, Transformer Models, BERT Model, and an Introduction to Generative AI Studio. Remarkably, this course is provided free of charge.

Within the AI domain, Microsoft presents two courses which are the Data Analyst Associate (DA-100) and Azure AI Fundamentals (AI-900). Both courses are available at no cost. The Data Analyst Associate course spans over 18 hours, while the Azure AI Fundamentals course has a duration of approximately 9 hours.

However, there are AI courses which are covered under the government incentive. This includes Certification Program in Generative AI, PG Program in Data Science, Machine Learning and Neural Networks, Data Science and AI, IBM Certified Data Science and many.

To qualify for this incentive, allowing individuals to potentially earn up to Rs 14,500, beneficiaries need to meet specific eligibility criteria. This includes IT employees in IT and non-IT firms, officials of PSUs and autonomous bodies, non-IT employees looking to explore emerging technologies, central and state government employees, employees with outdated job roles or those who are currently unemployed and fresh recruits, interns and apprentices.

The goal behind the Future Skill Prime initiative and the courses being offered is to make learning accessible to all and enhance the skills of India’s workforce in emerging technologies, driving a revolution in upskilling. This initiative has over 80 corporates, 50 content partners, over 200 institutes and more than 300 courses in the domains of emerging technologies.