Bhubaneswar, 05 September (H.S.): The Odisha Higher Education Department on Saturday signed MoUs with CSRBOX, Nandi Foundation and Odisha Knowledge Corporation Limited (OKCL) to strengthen skill development, employability, artificial intelligence (AI) education and entrepreneurship among students and faculty across the State.

In collaboration with NASSCOM, the department also launched the ‘AI Course for All’ programme, which will provide online AI courses to more than one lakh higher education students and working faculty members.

Under the IBM-CSRBOX partnership, over 1.25 lakh students will receive training in AI, digital literacy, enterprise design thinking and project management through online courses, workshops and project-based learning. Special focus will be given to students from 107 higher education institutions in remote and aspirational districts.

The MoU with Nandi Foundation will provide offline training to final-year female undergraduate and postgraduate students in financial literacy, critical thinking, public speaking and communication skills.

Under the agreement with OKCL, students will receive 30 hours of English-language training and 10 hours of AI training, while teachers will undergo five hours of AI orientation.

The department has also partnered with the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India (EDII), Ahmedabad, under which 40 faculty members will undergo a six-day Faculty Mentor Development Programme to strengthen entrepreneurship mentoring and startup promotion in higher education institutions.

Meanwhile, the Academic Performance Audit for higher education institutions and faculty was launched to assess academic performance using 52 Key Performance Indicators under four pillars—Student, Faculty, Infrastructure and Activities.

A Question Bank Portal, developed in line with NEP 2020, was also launched to improve the quality of question papers and align their preparation with the National Credit Framework.

The initiatives are aimed at enhancing students’ employability and digital skills, strengthening faculty capacity and building a stronger ecosystem for AI, entrepreneurship and academic excellence in Odisha.

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Hindusthan Samachar / Monalisa Panda