Collaborative skilling towards competitive and sustainable future”

09 March 2023

CII Karnataka organised its 2nd Edition Skills Conference 2023 on the theme Collaborative skilling to Archieve Global Competitive Edge on 9th March 2023 at Hotel Taj West End, Bengaluru.

Atul Kumar Tiwari, Secretary, Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, Government of India, addressing the Inaugural Session virtually, shared that the policies to support skilling were based on the economic trajectory and roadmap. By 2030, upskilling in India was predicted to rise by 6.3%. He also mentioned enhancing the ability of the network of district skill development offices to organise, carry out, and keep track of livelihood and skill development programmes tailored to certain regions. The ministry was proactively seeking engagement and collaboration with stakeholders to undertaken initiatives to correct regional inequalities through skilling programmes.
Dr. S. Selvakumar, IAS, Principal Secretary to the Government, Commerce & Industries, PWD, and Department of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship, and Livelihood, Government of Karnataka highlighted the decentralised strategy adopted by the State to support and enable demand led skill training and curriculum. He shared that the Government of Karnataka had partnered with Industry to upgrade the ITIs across the State and urged business and academia to work together to develop cutting-edge skilling frameworks. Dr Selvakumar also mentioned about The Karnataka Skill Connect Portal (KSCP) is a unique digital platform will unite academic institutions, various skilling organisations, potential workers, and potential employers. The State is focussed on providing high-quality technical trainings and upskilling initiatives, and has already consolidated several services under the Skills Department.
Dr. N. Reguraj, Past Chairman CII Karnataka & Managing Director, NTTF, emphasised the importance of daily learning and how upskilling is the need of the hour at all levels of management. Collaboration within the stakeholders is imperative step to strengthen the skilling ecosystem.
Mr. Vijaykrishnan Venkatesan, Chairman, CII Karnataka State Council & Managing Director, Kennametal India Ltd., cited “about how human capital is the biggest challenge in the growth. He highlighted the importance of skilling, upskilling and refilling as the need of the hour for skill development.”
Mr BV Sudarshan, Convenor CII Karnataka Skills Taskforce & Deputy Managing Director, NTTF cited “their work and collaborations with various education providers and universities to create a knowledge-based quality workforce in the market by providing quality curriculum backed by systematic experiments through hands on experience. Also the core objective is to maximise the impact of training and skilling initiative among the youth.”
The conference saw a participation of eminent speakers from a cross section of industries, Academia and the Government like Karnataka Skill Development Corporation ( KSDC), Government Tool Room & Training centre (GTTC), NTTF, Hitachi Energy, Schneider Electric, Intel, Oracle, IIIT Bengaluru, TCS ion and many more.

Corporate leaders shared their experience on Skilling initiatives undertaken by each of the companies and Government addressed on various collaborative efforts which could create a multiplier effect to improve the state’s Skilling ecosystem.

The speakers also brainstormed on bridging the gap between Industry and Academia to create a talent pool which is industry ready and how Government could catalyse this through a robust policy framework like NEP and Skill missions.