New Delhi: Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, on 11 August, today, presided over the signing of strategic Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) between Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) and global technology companies Ericsson India Pvt. Ltd, Qualcomm Technologies, Cisco Systems and Nokia Solutions and Networks India Pvt. Ltd.
The agreements aim to advance digital skilling initiatives at the Bharat Ratna Bhim Rao Ambedkar Institute of Telecom Training (BRBRAITT), Jabalpur.
This initiative is a step towards a broader plan by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to establish a Telecom Innovation, Research and Training Centre (TIRTC) at BRBRAITT.
Under the initiative, Ericsson will set up a dedicated lab at BRBRAITT and train over 2,000 students in 5G and advanced AI courses, with an initial investment of Rs 1 crore. The courses, ranging from 18 to 84 hours, are expected to be completed within a year.
Qualcomm will also launch training programmes from today, with plans to absorb some trainees in the long term. Cisco will conduct 30-hour courses for new participants, while Nokia will invest Rs 2 crore in the first phase to run two 12-week courses, alongside a larger commitment of Rs 2,000 crore to the initiative.
Scindia described the collaboration as “the beginning of a new dawn,” adding, “We are all cogs of the wheel of the motion that brings alive this tech innovation. Today, all four companies are representatives of the new India. They provide an important partnership to BSNL.”
He highlighted that vocational training from these companies would directly benefit youth, with more than 2,000 students set to be trained under the programme.
Outlining his expectations, Scindia urged the companies:
I have requested the companies to consider five things. First, in addition to the technical training courses, I would like you to include a capsule for team-building exercises for our students. Secondly, from this training, I would like the students who excel to be hired by your respective companies. Thirdly, those who are trained–if their names can be featured on your company’s website–it would give them a big fillip and boost their motivation.
Fourthly, there are two ways to populate our training centre: one is to wait for people to apply to you and the other is to proactively write to colleges, informing them that we have started this facility and inviting students to participate in these courses. This will, using the analogy of telecom, provide a very robust “broad pipe” of human resource talent coming to our training centre and if it comes from you, it will carry much greater weight.
Fifth, in stage two–as we look at modernising this facility–I would request you to consider establishing labs for 6G, quantum, IoT, MLand all the new technologies within this institute. These are my five requests to you to help this enterprise truly take off.
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