Next 5 years to focus on skilling, creating vast number of new jobs: Amitabh Kant

New Delhi, June 8 (IANS) As the demand for talented young Indians grows for emerging technologies, the new government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi will further focus on skilling and creating new jobs, G20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant has said.

There is an urgent need to bridge the gap between industry demands and the available talent pool and ramp-up the skilled engineers pool in India, particularly in areas where there is a high demand, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science, and cybersecurity.

“The curriculum of many of these engineering colleges and our IITs needs to be totally reoriented and restructured to align with the demands of today, to address the supply chain issue,” said Kant, former NITI Aayog CEO, at the India Global Innovation Connect (IGIC) event in Bengaluru.

He added that the next five years of the government will focus on “skilling and apprenticeship to create a vast number of new jobs.”

Soumitra Dutta, Dean of Oxford University’s Said Business School, said India is currently at a fortunate moment where the country is benefiting from several years of favourable economic policies.

“Among students and youth, we are seeing a renewed enthusiasm for technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship and there is energy and hunger around entrepreneurship,” Dutta said.

The brand of India has changed today and there is a significant transformation in India’s image and is now being recognised for its software programmers and genius talent pool, he stressed.

According to Claude Smadja, Chairman, Smadja & Smadja Strategic Advisory, experts from across several countries deliberated in an exchange of ideas and insights on technology trends, biotech, deep tech, innovation, the startup ecosystem and AI, among other topics.