New IoT Centre of Excellence opens in Bangalore to skill blue-collar workers

India Electronics and Semiconductor Association (IESA) along with the Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), Bangalore and TSSC have inked an MoU for opening a Center of Excellence (CoE) in Bangalore. With this collaboration between TSSC, IESA and TiE, the CoE will help provide a platform to skill, develop and train blue-collar workers in the field of IoT. Naganand Doraswamy, president, TiE Bangalore stressed about the need for such initiatives. He said, “Both TiE and IESA are proud to present the second edition of IoTNext. With aggressive focus by the Indian Government on ‘Digital India’, ‘Smart Cities’ and ‘Make in India’ to drive the growth and development of the nation, the MoU signed today will provide further impetus for the growth of the IoT ecosystem. With the rise in technological innovations, many workers lose out on opportunities as there is a huge gap between their skills and what is expected of them. The Center of Excellence will provide them with these necessary skills and bridge the gap.” As the industry shifts towards automation, it will help empower the group to focus on gaining competency using some of the best practices and also help create job opportunities. This is on the heels of the second IoTNext 2016 event that saw a huge turnout from industry thought leaders, startups and stakeholders in the IoT sector. IoTNext has mentored around 16 startups since its inception including Cardiac Design Labs that won Google LaunchPad Award. The growth of IoT in every industry has led to the need to train technicians in order to deploy, manage and maintain the IoT edge Nodes and Gateways. At the summit, TiE-IESA has also launched a unique IoT Startup directory, a compilation of IoT startups across the nation. It will be an online repository with detailed information on the startups and the products they offer. TiE- IESA has also teamed up with HAX Accelerator to support Indian startups. Speaking on the occasion, M N Vidyashankar, president, IESA said, “It is our great pleasure to bring forth IoTNext again this year. As an industry body, it is our responsibility to create a platform to share disruptive ideas and catapult them into reality. With the support of some of the biggest global innovators such as IBM, Intel and General Electric, we have been able to bring together some of the brightest minds in the industry to share their insights.” He further added, “The MoU signed today with TSSC ensures that blue collared workers will be able to adopt to the benefits of IoT instead of being left behind. The Centre of Excellence will have skill training specially curated for this task force so that they can develop their knowledge further and become industry ready.”