Esri India, a geographical information system (GIS) software and solutions provider, has announced its plans to train over 2 lakh students in three years.
According to Esri India’s official release, this initiative has been taken in order to meet the rising demand of GIS skilled workforce in India, driven by crucial government projects in smart cities, AMRUT, water resources, agriculture, insurance, land management & SVAMITVA, and utilities. As per the reports, India will need 10 lakh more GIS professionals by the year 2025. Therefore to achieve this, Esri India has launched a countrywide comprehensive campus-wide program to empower universities and institutes to set up and scale their GIS learning infrastructure for students.
The company stated that it aims to skill students from over 150 institutes as part of this initiative. In addition, Esri India is also planning to establish a Centre of Competence (CoC) to provide students from various streams with an opportunity to acquire the most advanced GIS technology skills.
Talking about this initiative, Agendra Kumar, Managing Director, Esri India stated that, job creation is an important goal for the government as well as academia. So, the opportunities will come in many segments.
Read an interview with Agendra Kumar at Esri, here.
He said, “Large IT companies also have opportunities for geospatial professionals because they handle global clients and both global as well as Indian clients. In India, public sector companies like petroleum companies, utility companies, private organisations, and educational and research communities are some of the segments that will also see higher demands. That is why it’s important to create a pipeline of more skilled resources in the country.”
The company said that the recent government policy changes like de-regulating geospatial data and National Education Policy 2020 have also increased the adoption of geospatial technologies.
The official release stated that universities and institutes like Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) in Delhi, Bombay, Guwahati, Roorkee, along with BHU, NIIT Kurukshetra, Aligarh Muslim University, Jammu University, and Symbiosis Institute of Geoinformatics at Pune, among others, are closely working with Esri India to skill students in GIS technologies.
Esri India also fosters GIS know-how through other programs, including the GIS Academia Council of India and Esri India Young Scholar Program.
