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Say HAAI for AI – Hands-on Artificial Intelligence for the real-world applications

AI4ICPS of IIT Kharagpur launches certification course on Artificial Intelligence with TCS iON

Press Conference on launch of HAAI

AI for Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (AI4ICPS), a national AI Hub, established by IIT Kharagpur under the aegis of DST, Government of India, on the occasion of third anniversary of National Educational Policy 2020 (NEP 2020), announces the launch of its latest and highly anticipated program, “Hands-on AI for the real-world applications (HAAI).” The course was launched by Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur in the august presence of Mr. Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head, TCS iON, along with Prof. Amit Patra, Deputy Director, Prof. Pabitra Mitra, Project Director, AI4ICPS; Captain Amit Jain (Retd.), Registrar; Mr. Bhat Dittakavi, CEO, AI4ICPS Technology Innovation Hub of IIT Kharagpur; Mr. Manivannan Ranganathan, Business Head, TCS iON and senior officials of TCS. This certification program is set to democratize education in AI technologies for skill development of youth and professionals with the goal to massively educate 1,00,000 lakh people as part of nation building.

Prof. V K Tewari, Director , IIT Kharagpur with Mr. Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head, TCS iON

Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur stated, “Skill Development of the students and young professionals as a part of nation building has been one of the major aspects of NEP 2020. The Hands-on AI certification course offered by AI4ICPS of IIT Kharagpur will prepare the participants industry readiness and the opportunity to interact with TCS and other industry subject matter experts which will amalgamate a potential career path for the students and the professionals in accordance with AI application. The vision towards this program is to implement NEP 2020 for AI Education to improve employability and encourage innovation. The TCS team is on board with us to offer infrastructure competences and other technical support. The course targets one lakh students in cohort (phases) with interactive sessions. Through this course the participants would know how he/she can utilize this pedagogy for implementations in his job profile. Following the success of the course, we can take this forward to launch a diploma course for 10-12 months or a degree course which will be beneficial for the students and the working professional. This will also be an opportunity for the people to experience the industrial outline of the knowledge base, i.e. IIT Kharagpur.

Launching of HAAI

Led by the esteemed Director of IIT Kharagpur, Prof. V K Tewari, Hands-on AI for the real-world applications (HAAI) has been meticulously designed to not only meet the demands of the rapidly evolving Al industry but also structured to implement the NEP 2020 recommendations such as education for all, concepts based and hands-on interdisciplinary learning, upskilling for employability and digital technology enhanced virtual classrooms. With the emphasis on hands-on learning and interdisciplinary approaches, this transformative program offers a unique blend of theoretical foundations and hands-on practical learning, heavily biased towards later.

AI4ICPS has brought in TCS iON, a strategic unit of Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) focused on educational institutions and examination boards, as a platform and outreach partner for this certification program. As a partner, TCS iON will provide LMS platform services and massive outreach to institutions of India and another target audience.

TCS iON Delegation

Mr. Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head, TCS iON remarked, “At TCS iON, we have made significant and continued investments in developing learning and assessment solutions that can help in upskilling India’s youth at scale. We are bringing an ecosystem covering multiple players with pedigreed academic institutions and leading industry players to create impactful programs which add industry context to academic learning. We are very happy to join hands with AI4ICPS unit of IIT Kharagpur in taking the course on “AI for Real World Applications” to the market jointly. A large number of people wants to learn from IIT Kharagpur. Multiple cohorts will be conducted starting with the 3 months online course, once we reach a maximum number through registration. Professionals, students, corporates can join this course which will in turn create new opportunities, better jobs with a deep dive into a multiple structure of real world AI applications. This is just the beginning, we want to learn more from each other.”

Interaction with Media Professionals

This 3-month weekends-only online program are offered by the faculty of IIT Kharagpur from Computer Science, Electronics, Electrical and Math departments and TCS scientists and the real-world applications are offered by industry experts along with the research scholars of IIT Kharagpur with hands-on practical learning.

Some of the key highlights of the program include 100 hours of overall experiential learning, industry preparedness from AI4ICPS hub, modular quizzes, tips and tricks and assignments, discussion rooms, some real-world datasets, live doubt-clearing by the experts, certificate of merit for top 1%, opportunity to interact with industry professionals and resume prep guidance by AI4ICPS.

Course name: Hands-on AI for the real-world applications

Duration: 47 contact hours and total 100 hours of experiential learning

Start Date: 2nd September 2023

End Date: 2nd December 2023

Eligibility: Freshers, individuals pursuing UG/PG degree, who aspire for a career in the field of AI, working professionals looking for a career transition as AI/ML engineer, individuals with basic programming knowledge looking to build their careers in IT.

Prospective participants can register for this certification program through AI4ICPS official website www.ai4icps.in or TCS iON website https://learning.tcsionhub.in/hub/iit-kgp-certificate-program/hands-on-approach-to-ai/

Media Coverage:

Indian AI	Hindustan Times	India Today
Economic Times (Telugu)	News 18 (Malyalam)	The Print
Deccan Herald	Aaj Kal	Ei Samay
ANM News English	Latestly	Careers 360
Amader Bharat	STV	KGP News
Fagen Wasanni Technologies	Daily New Post	ANM News Hindi

ABP (Print) Dainik Bhaskar Dainik Jagran

Contact Person : Bhatt Dittakavi, CEO, AI4ICPS, IIT Kharagpur
Email : ceo@ai4icps.in

Edited By : Poulami Mondal, Digital & Creative Media Executive (Creative Writer)
Email: poulami.mondal@iitkgp.ac.in, media@iitkgp.ac.in, Ph. No.: +91-3222-282007

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Study@COVID-Time with NDLI

IIT Kharagpur develops JEE Preparation Module on NDLI during COVID-19 Lockdown

Times of India Navbharat Times Times Now Education Times India Today NDTV Jagran Josh DataQuest NDTV Khabar

In a recent announcement JEE Main and NEET UG have been postponed till last week of May 2020 with Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Minister, Human Resources Development, Govt. of India urging students to prepare further for these examinations during this period. While the decision for the postponement was expected, students now need adequate online resources and e-learning materials to continue with their preparation.

IIT Kharagpur has been quick to address the issue by developing a preparatory module for JEE available to students for free on the National Digital Library of India platform. Students can visit the NDLI website https://www.ndl.gov.in/ or https://ndl.iitkgp.ac.in/ or log on to the NDLI mobile application. A special module named ‘Corona Outbreak: Study from Home’ has been added to the website which contains a wide range of digital content including those preparing for competitive examinations like JEE Advanced. The repository contains NDLI Tutorial for JEE Advanced for 12 years and Practice Questions and Solutions for JEE Preparation. Content for JEE Mains for 5 years is expected to be made available soon.

“The solutions have been prepared from the perspective of undergraduate students who have cleared JEE as well as subject matter experts and doctoral students in related areas. Hence the solutions are diverse and students can opt for their preferred methods. Further we have provided reference materials for related problems, so students can explore further the topics,” explained Prof. Partha Pratim Das, Joint-Principal Investigator, NDLI.

Students can browse the School option under the Corona Outbreak module or search by relevant keywords. The developers recommend registering on the portal for better user experience though the resources are available without any restrictions.

“Please visit and continue your studies. Please let us know how we can continue to support your preparations. NDLI is accessible through the web as well as mobile App. Be safe but let us be digitally active in academics and connected,” says Prof. P P Chakrabarti, Principal Investigator of NDLI, on his social media handle. He further urges to reach out to students who can be immensely benefited from this platform during this lockdown period. “Digital Libraries have become the next generation paradigm for people to empower themselves with knowledge and contribute to the knowledge gathering of this world,” he added.

NDLI was developed by IIT Kharagpur under the aegis of Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India in the year 2016 as a National Mission project. MHRD has been promoting various e-learning platforms since the academic activities have been restricted in educational institutions earlier this month due to CoronaVirus outbreak. NDLI has been at the forefront of such e-learning platforms with over 4.8 crore content in more than 300 languages that can be viewed in 60+ formats apart from e-books (audiobooks, simulations, e-thesis, question papers etc.). The platform has over 55 Lakh users.

“The project, which has been collating content to democratize education for India, has shaped up to be the most promising initiative on the future of libraries from India and symbolizes a strong voice to tell the story from India’s standpoint,” added Prof. Das.

Leading Cyber Security Education

Times of India The Week Business Standard

IIT Kharagpur has been adjudged the winner of the DSCI Excellence Award 2018 for Cyber Security Education by NASSCOM‘s Data Security Council of India (DSCI). The Institute, which has been making waves in the areas of cybersecurity, IoT security and associated areas in Artificial Intelligence, was awarded for its focused curricula and research work in cryptography, hardware security, cyber security, network security, that has helped create awareness among students.

“Our research and coursework in cyber security, network security and cryptography are targeted towards delivering the necessary technologies and also creating leaders in research, industry and governance who would bring forward such transformation in India which is undergoing the digital revolution right now as we talk,” said Prof. P P Chakrabarti, Director, IIT Kharagpur.

A number of research ventures led by Prof. Debdeep Mukhopadhyay at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kharagpur were primarily considered for this Award. These included DRDO funded projects on developing lightweight protocols for authenticating IoT nodes, IC reverse engineering and trojan detection, and the DST funded Swarnajayanti project on secure authentication protocols for smart grids. The Award committee specially cited the advanced infrastructure and lab equipment procured by the Institute for these projects, including a DRDO funded FIB station for IC imaging.

“At IIT Kharagpur we focus on online and offline security of data in the digital space since our experience at consumer and B2B levels tell us that without appropriate security measures, any data-centric solution would create a Mr. Hyde instead of a Dr. Jekyll,” opined Sikhar Patranabis who received the award at the NASSCOM-DSCI Annual Information Security Summit 2018 on December 5.

Sikhar, a B.Tech. topper in 2015 and currently a Ph.D. candidate at the Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Kharagpur, is among the few buddying technologists in India pursuing research in the area of cryptographic security for the Internet of Things. “You might think of making your home smart by installing IoT gadgets and applications but what happens, for instance, when the access is overridden by unauthorized entities? By the time you reach home, the security of your house would be breached. So any smart application must be designed keeping the security requirements in mind,” he explained.

Data Security Council of India (DSCI), is a not-for-profit, industry body on data protection in India, set up by NASSCOM, committed to making the cyberspace safe, secure and trusted by establishing best practices, standards and initiatives in cybersecurity and privacy. To further its objectives, DSCI engages with governments and their agencies, regulators, industry sectors, industry associations and think tanks for policy advocacy, thought leadership, capacity building and outreach activities.

The purpose of the DSCI Excellence Award is to recognize, honour and reward organizations and individuals who have taken strategic, proactive and innovative security and privacy efforts to help the organization address real risks, build resilience, increase trustworthiness and create a conducive environment for doing business and thus enable the organization to harness data protection as a lever for business growth.