New Delhi, Apr 7 (IANS): As you work from home due to COVID-19 lockdown, here comes an opportunity to upgrade your emerging tech skills including Artificial Intelligence (AI), thanks to a new initiative that was launched by IT industrys apex body Nasscom and Union IT Ministry on Tuesday.

As a result, the Foundational Artificial Intelligence (AI) course from learning platform SkillUp Online will be available for free for everyone till May 15, said Nasscom.

"The novel coronavirus has thrown up exceptional challenges across the world and industries alike. While we continue to fight these challenges as a nation, amidst lockdown and remote working scenarios, it is extremely important that we continue harnessing our skill sets on emerging technologies to become future ready," said Debjani Ghosh, President, Nasscom.

This course is aligned to the industry's recommended Foundation AI curriculum (retail price Rs 6,800).

The Foundational Big Data Analytics course from Digital Vidya -- aligned to the industry's recommended Foundation BDA curriculum -- will also be soon made available free of cost (retail price Rs 5,000).

The campaign to upgrade skills of people has been launched under the Nasscom FutureSkills initiative which has curated deep learning programmes for their partner ecosystem that will be available for free on the Nasscom website for all users.

"COVID -19 has thrown unprecedented challenges for the world and industries alike. While we continue to fight these challenges as a nation, it's important to use this opportunity to upgrade our skills, in order to remain industry relevant and future ready," Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, said in a statement.

In the coming weeks, Nasscom also plans to provide learning modules on other technologies like Internet of Things (IoT) and cybersecurity along with live webinars for participants to create more interactive learning on these themes.