Digital Adda - Digital Skills for All
Most students who enroll in college, think of getting a degree as a passport to a better life. Some dream of getting a good job or becoming an entrepreneur. At the same time, with increasing digitalization across all domains, they wonder what is it that they should do to make sure that their dream becomes a reality. Most are confused and want answers.
To answer the various queries in the minds of STEM and Arts students, nasscom FutureSkills Prime in collaboration with Apollo Arts and Science College, Chennai, hosted a round table on the topic “Digital Skills For All”.
The round-table or ‘Digital Adda’ as we like to call it had eminent industry experts sharing their learnings and giving students tips to future-proof their career. The session was moderated by Smitha Kumaran, Learner Success Lead, nasscom FutureSkills Prime.
Deeptha Mohan, Program Management Leader, Freshworks, exhorted the students to have fun with technology and not be scared of it. “Bring your energy and curiosity to the table and pick up digital skills”, she said. She shared how students can learn technology and leverage the skills to create a more inclusive society, for e.g. create apps that can help hearing impaired or people with blurry vision.
P.R. Manikantan, CEO, Seil Learning, encouraged students to pick up foundation skills like Excel as a stepping stone to digital skills. The foundation skills are the key to becoming employable.
Replying to a question whether Arts students can aspire to make a career in technology, Sandesh Aravind, Director of Product management, Athena Health, answered in the affirmative. Although coding is the cornerstone of technology and coders are assured of getting a job but product testing, User experience and User design are integral part of software development teams and all tech companies require talent with these skills.
Ashok Balasubramanian, CEO, Open Weaver, which is a platform for app development, revealed that whichever domain you may be interested in -automotive, banking, almost 80% of it is digitally driven. Even in the music industry, music is being remixed and created digitally. There is no escaping digital skills. At the same time, he stressed on the importance of professional skills like communication, logical reasoning and problem solving.
The audience of 1250+ students and 120+ faculty listened in rapt attention as the experts spoke in the language they understood and answered their questions patiently.
Written by Kaamna Jain