Bangaluru, Feb 25 (IANS): Software giant IBM and NASSCOM Foundation on Tuesday jointly announced the culmination of the first year of the New-collar Employability Skills Program under this more than 2,500 students from 23 colleges across the regions of Karnataka, NCR and Haryana completed this certified course on emerging technologies of data science and cloud computing.

"The skills development collaboration with education institutions and our program partners, the response we received from new age employers - with over 750 students receiving new collar employment offers - more than 60 per cent of these students being girls - are all indicating that the ecosystem is gearing up for the skills and the jobs of the future," Manoj Balachandran, Leader, Corporate Social Responsibility, IBM India Pvt. Ltd.

This corporate social responsibility intervention by IBM engaged students through an on-campus approach in a 204 hour-long blended training model that uses online and face-to-face training immersions to build skills in new-age technologies like Data Science and Cloud Computing.

"We are delighted to see this new and unique initiative succeed and are happy to share that we will be continuing this partnership for the second year and make 2500 more students from non-tech institutes employable," Ashok Pamidi, CEO, NASSCOM Foundation, added.

Students from 23 Tier-2 and Tier-3 non-technical institutions were trained by training partners TMI and iPrimed. The colleges chosen for the program included Vijaya Evening College, East Point College, Vidya Vahini College, Vivekanand Degree College, Karnataka college Dharwad, Siddaganga College, Siddhaganga Women's College and several colleges in Dharwar, Bhagalkot, Gadag, Koppal, Nargund, and Bangaluru and Tumkur.