MongoDB recently announced the expansion of MongoDB for Academia in India, including a new partnership with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Ministry of Education, Government of India. The AICTE partnership will be supported by SmartBridge’s SmartInternz learning platform to give more than 150,000 Indian students access to virtual internships and to gain the skills required to use MongoDB Atlas—the leading multi-cloud developer data platform.
As part of the program’s expansion, MongoDB also announced a new partnership with GeeksforGeeks, a platform for computer science resources in India. The collaboration will make the MongoDB Developer Learning Path available to all of GeeksforGeeks’ 25 million registered users.
Launched in September 2023, the MongoDB for Academia in India program provides student training, curriculum resources for educators, credits to use MongoDB technology at no cost, and certifications to help individuals start careers in the technology industry. The skills and training provided through the program are particularly important, as many Indian organizations struggle to find developers who have the skills to build modern applications and take advantage of emerging technologies like generative AI.
According to a report from the National Association of Software and Service Companies, India’s technology sector will demand more than one million engineers with advanced skills in artificial intelligence and other capabilities over the next three years. Overall, the industry body expects there will be a need for around six million digital roles by 2028—and the available talent pool is forecast to be 4.7 million workers. This gap underscores the need for increased collaboration between industry and academia to upskill students and educators in India to meet the demands of the country’s large and growing economy.
“In India, we have a massive opportunity with the current wave of AI and modern technologies that will transform our lives and economy in the coming years. But to take advantage of that opportunity, it is vital our developers have the right skills. We’re excited to partner with MongoDB to help make that possible,” said Dr. Buddha Chandrasekhar CEO, Anuvadini AI, Ministry of Education and Chief Coordinating Officer, AICTE, Ministry of Education, Government of India.
To address this challenge, MongoDB for Academia is partnering with the All Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the Indian government’s authority for the management of technical education, and the edtech platform SmartBridge to launch a virtual internship program through the SmartInternz platform. Aligned with the government’s Skill India Initiative, the program aims to provide full-stack development skills to over 150,000 students. Each internship will include 60 hours of experiential learning, hands-on bootcamps, courses, and project work, as well as simulated corporate environments where students can apply their learned skills, collaborate with peers, and receive mentorship.
“We’ve seen great appetite and interest on our platform for modern database technologies like MongoDB. We want to equip students with knowledge of in-demand technologies so they have skills they need to become the job-ready candidates India’s organizations are looking for,” said Amarender Katkam, Founder and CEO at SmartBridge and SmartInternz.
In the past year, the MongoDB for Academia program has made major strides toward its goal of upskilling 500,000 students. To date, more than 200 partnerships with educational institutions have been established, as well as collaborations with other government and private organizations. Hundreds of educators have been onboarded on to the MongoDB for Academia program, more than 100,000 students have received skills training, and over 450,000 hours of learning have been completed.
“India loves developers and so does MongoDB. I’m so proud of the work our MongoDB for Academia team is doing to empower Indian developers and to support the next generation of tech talent in this country,” said Sachin Chawla, Area Vice President, India at MongoDB.
MongoDB for Academia is also expanding to partner with GeeksforGeeks which will see the organizations collaborate on a number of new projects, including the syndication of key full-stack development courses to learners both in online and offline GeeksforGeeks centers across India. The MongoDB Developer Learning path will also become available to all GeeksforGeeks users, and is expected to reach more than 100,000 aspiring developers.
