IIT Roorkee Ties with Online Learning Platform Coursera to Offer Online courses

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee has partnered with Coursera, a leading online learning platform, to launch new online programs and certifications for a global audience. IIT Roorkee plans to launch high demand programs like Advanced Certification in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) and Certification in Data Science, with a goal to expand its online program portfolio on Coursera as part of a commitment to make the coveted institution accessible to learners around the world.

The Advanced Certification in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning program will enable learners from around the world to learn AI/ML skills from India's top technology institute. It is a six months program and is a unique combination of expert lectures, hands-on labs, tutorials, team projects, and workshops ensuring fast-track learning along with building knowledge on coding and mathematics necessary for building expertise in AI/ML besides equipping with classical ML techniques and algorithms, programming with TensorFlow for easy model building, robust ML production and powerful experimentation among others. 

Certification in Data Science program is designed to equip professionals with competencies in the core focus areas of Data Science, Machine Learning, Critical Thinking, Data Collection, Data Visualisation, and Data Management. The course will develop programming skills in Python and SQL relevant, help learners understand the algorithms used in data analytics, and build knowledge about the selected machine learning algorithms such as linear models, kNN, SVM, Trees, Random forest, and neural networks and much more. The program requires no prior knowledge of coding in Python, R, or SQL.

With this partnership, IIT Roorkee joins the ranks of 170 top universities, including Yale, University of Michigan, Stanford, and Imperial College of London — that offer programs on Coursera. Coursera’s 67 million learners across 190 countries will now be able to access IIT Roorkee’s highly sought-after and job-relevant programs.

“Coursera is a leading online learning platform. We are delighted to partner with Coursera to help fulfill the goal of inclusive education of the New Education Policy. Further, this partnership will help us reach out to a global audience of students and professionals aspiring for quality teaching in these sought after areas,” said Prof. Ajit K. Chaturvedi, Director, IIT Roorkee.

“IIT Roorkee is one of India’s top and oldest engineering schools, and millions aspire to learn from this illustrious institution,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera. This partnership makes the institution accessible to a global audience. Now anyone anywhere can take the institute's high-quality programs to learn skills of the future."

IIT Roorkee will launch both these programs on Coursera in early 2021.

About Coursera

Coursera was founded by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng with a vision of providing life-transforming learning experiences to anyone, anywhere. It is now a leading online learning platform for higher education, where 67 million learners from around the world come to learn skills of the future. More than 200 of the world’s top universities and industry educators partner with Coursera to offer projects, courses, Specializations, certificates, and degree programs. 2,500 companies trust the company’s enterprise platform Coursera for Business to transform their talent. Coursera for Government equips government employees and citizens with in-demand skills to build a competitive workforce. Coursera for Campus empowers any university to offer high-quality, job-relevant online education to students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Coursera is backed by leading investors that include Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates, Learn Capital, and SEEK Group.

About IIT Roorkee

IIT Roorkee is an institute of national importance imparting higher education in engineering, sciences, management, architecture and planning, and humanities and social sciences. Since its establishment in 1847, the Institute has played a vital role in providing technical human resources and know-how to the country.

Online Learning Startup Coursera Raises $64M in Series D Round at $800M Valuation

Today, online learning startup Coursera announced that it has closed $64 million in a Series D funding round, taking the company's total capital raised to date to $210.3 million. Coursera will use the latest round to fund efforts in its fast-growing enterprise business (Coursera for Business), to expand its master’s degree portfolio, and to accelerate product innovations that take advantage of the platform’s unmatched scale with over 26 million registered learners globally.

In strong support for the company’s direction, the majority of the funding for this round came from existing investors—GSV Asset Management, New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers (KPCB) and Learn Capital. The Lampert Foundation also participated as a new investor.

“As the industry leader in online higher education, we have a massive opportunity ahead of us in preparing people, companies, and governments to respond to the changing nature of jobs and to take on the urgent challenges of workforce transformation,” said Rick Levin, Coursera’s CEO. “This round of funding enables us to continue innovating across our platform to deliver better learner outcomes, and to accelerate the momentum we have in our new initiatives — enterprise and degrees.”

Coursera recently launched Coursera for Business—a platform to help companies manage workforce transformation at scale. Within a short span, it has been embraced by more than 50 companies around the world, including BCG, BNY Mellon, L’Oreal, Paypal, and Air France KLM.

In January of this year, Coursera also launched Coursera for Governments & Nonprofits, joining forces with government and local institutions to prepare their communities for the jobs of the future. These partnerships have quickly scaled to cover efforts in a number of countries, such as the US, Pakistan, Egypt, Malaysia, and Singapore.

In addition to over 2,000 courses and 180 Specializations, Coursera has begun offering fully-accredited online master’s degrees in order to serve the full spectrum of educational needs. Encouraged by the success of the first two degrees it launched in 2015, it recently announced two more degrees—a Master’s in Innovation and Entrepreneurship (OMIE) from HEC Paris, and a Master’s of Accounting (iMSA) from the University of Illinois.

“We are excited to see Coursera emerge as the world’s learning platform, with a highly engaged global learner base and educational content from leading universities and top companies,” said Michael Moe, Founder and CEO of GSV Asset Management. “In a global marketplace and knowledge-based economy, education makes the difference not only for how well an individual does, but for companies, and for that matter, countries."

Within five years of its founding, Coursera has emerged as the world’s largest online platform for higher education with more than 26 million learners, 150 university partners, and 2000+ courses. With the deepest catalog of courses, innovations like micro-credentials that learners can stack into degrees, and machine learning-powered skills and content matching systems, Coursera is well positioned to equip more people around the world with the skills they need to close gaps in high-demand fields like data science, computer science, and business.

Online Education Company Coursera Appoints Raghav Gupta as India Country Director

Coursera, the world’s leading online education company, has appointed Raghav Gupta as India Country Director. In this role, Raghav will play a strategic role in deepening Coursera’s investment in India with a focus on expanding the company’s workforce development initiatives and partnerships with the country’s top employers. India is Coursera’s largest market outside of the US with over 2 million registered learners. Until recently, Raghav was the India Country Manager at BlaBlaCar, an inter-city carpooling service.

A strategic and entrepreneurial business leader, Raghav comes with nearly two decades of experience across the consumer, internet, and management consulting industries in India, South-east Asia, and Europe. He helped launched BlaBlaCar in India and previously worked as a consultant at Booz & Co. and Technopak Advisors. Raghav holds a Master’s in Business Administration from INSEAD.

Commenting on Raghav’s appointment, Leah Belsky, Vice President of Global Enterprise Development, said, “We are excited to appoint Raghav to lead our growth in India, a country where online education offers tremendous promise. He strongly shares our vision for a world where education is accessible to everyone. Coursera has already touched millions in India, but that number is tiny compared to a vast majority of Indians who have yet to experience our platform. Raghav’s experience in helping technology companies accelerate their growth and impact in India will be invaluable.”

Speaking about his appointment, Raghav Gupta said, “In a country where education remains one of the most powerful tools of career and social mobility, Coursera brings the world’s best education within the reach of most Indians. Young Indians need high quality and affordable avenues to learn high demand skills, and I look forward to working with both companies and the government in helping them manage skills-gap challenges. It’s exciting to be part of a company that is impacting the lives of millions through access to high quality education.”

Mr. Kabir Chadha who previously headed Coursera’s efforts in India has moved to company headquarters in Mountain View.

Entrepreneurs Taking Online Courses from Coursera to Receive $2.4M from IBM

Coursera, the largest open online education provider, today announced that IBM India, the Indian subsidiary of IBM, will source high potential entrepreneurs to invite into its Global Entrepreneur program from Coursera’s Full Stack Web Development Specialization, a series of courses offered by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

At least twenty participants who complete the Full Stack Web Development Specialization and meet IBM criteria will be accepted into the IBM Global Entrepreneur. Selected participants will be provided with $120K USD in credit that may be used to access eligible IBM Cloud services. Additionally, all students enrolled in the Specialization will receive personalized invitations to apply to represent their startups at IBM SmartCamp 2016, a mentoring bootcamp and pitch competition between rising startups from around the globe.

Under this collaboration, Coursera will also offer a Capstone Project to learners who complete all of the courses in the Full Stack Web Development Specialization. The Capstone is designed to prepare entrepreneurs to launch a company on a web-based platform and involves implementing a fully functional client-side application (web application and hybrid mobile application) as well as full server-side implementation. Students enrolled in the Capstone will be provided with extended no charge access to the IBM BlueMix trial platform (estimated value of $1200 USD per student) to develop their projects.

According to a NASSCOM startup report, India is the third largest startup ecosystem in the world. The report also suggested that by 2020, there would be 11,500 startups, employing over 250 million people. Evidently, the Indian startup landscape is witnessing unparalleled growth and is playing a critical role in shaping the future of the country’s economy.

Speaking on Coursera’s collaboration with IBM, Kabir Chadha, India Country Manager, Coursera, said, "New start-ups are popping up in India every day, and we are pouring significant resources into industry partnerships and content launches to keep up with the demand for tech skills. IBM’s technology expertise and focus on developing the start-up community in the country will significantly benefit our learners by providing them with invaluable financial support and the necessary tools for a chance at success.”

The Full Stack Web Development Specialization is open to anyone for enrollment with start dates every month. The five course Specialization is expected to take around 6 months to complete, based on a minimum investment of 3-4 hours per week, and costs INR 20,000. The Specialization is designed to teach the essential elements of web page development, covering HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other essential skills for launching a web-based start-up.

IBM is also supporting developers and entrepreneurs through the following additional initiatives in partnership with Coursera. A developer’s guide to the Internet of Things, created by IBM and available on Coursera, is the first curriculum program delivered by a commercial learning partner.  IBM created the on-line program to provide a hands on learning approach to building basic skills for IoT. Additionally, IBM is supporting the Social Media Marketing Specialization on Coursera (developed by Northwestern University) for business owners and marketing professionals who want to significantly improve their abilities to grow their social strategy using effective, proven methodologies to profit in a digital world.

About Coursera

Coursera is an online education company that serves over 19 million registered learners by partnering with 140 of the world’s best universities and education institutions. On Coursera, anyone, anywhere can access over 1,000 online courses and Specializations in dozens of fields in order to achieve meaningful career, educational, and personal enrichment goals throughout their lives.

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