NIIT Limited, leading Global Talent Development Corporation and Asia’s largest IT trainer, today announced a breakthrough initiative ‘Cloud Campus’, for redefining the education landscape by making available new-age skills, to students across the breadth of the country. This was declared in a press conference in the capital today.

NIIT aims to offer over 100 courses across 300 locations by the end of 2013, thus enabling a coverage of over 500,000 students by 2014. NIIT will offer training programs in IT, Banking, Global Finance, Management, Digital & Social Media Marketing, through Cloud Campus with innovative learning features. NIIT Cloud CampusTM will empower the youth of the country by providing new-age training programs through the cutting-edge Cloud technology, to make them first day-first hour industry ready professionals.

NIIT Cloud Campus harnesses the power of Cloud technology to provide unique features – such as

Cloud Classroom – where students can interact and learn from not only the at-location faculty, but more importantly from expert faculty from wherever they are.
Cloud Courseware – the digital and dynamic courseware enables students to make notes, highlight and review at their convenience.
Anywhere Lab – providing 24x7 access for hands-on practice on their devices.
Lesson on Demand – ensuring that students don’t have to miss a lesson, even if they miss a class.
Online Assessments – enabling students take practice tests besides taking industry-level assessments.
Buddynet Learning – a learning feature that enables collaboration with other students as well as expert faculty, thus making learning lot more fun.

Speaking on this significant announcement, Rajendra S Pawar, Chairman, NIIT Ltd. said, “NIIT will usher the next revolution in education through Cloud Campus.”

This pioneering initiative from NIIT will help take high quality educational programs to the remotest corners of the country, thus addressing the dilemma of scalability and quality in education that our country is currently facing. NIIT Cloud CampusTM is based on a revolutionary educational paradigm which takes students beyond the traditional classroom teaching. It seamlessly blends classrooms, Cloud enabled classrooms and collaborated learning into India’s first Cloud Campus. Further, NIIT has set up www.niitcloudcampus.com as a student gateway to help them identify trends in new age skills and offer more information on NIIT Cloud CampusTM.

Mr. Vijay Thadani, Chief Executive Officer, NIIT Ltd. said, “Cloud is undoubtedly the future of learning. NIIT will empower the youth of the country by providing new age skills in domains across IT & emerging technologies, Banking, Global Finance, Management, Digital & Social Media Marketing.”

Long Term Career Programs for college students seeking new-age careers, Accelerated Programs in IT & Banking & Global finance domains for graduates, New Technology & Advanced skills courses for working professionals in IT, Marketing and General Management will be offered through Cloud Campus.

This breakthrough initiative from NIIT is likely to have huge impact on the education industry that is currently plagued by the dual challenges of quality and scalability. With smart phones and tablets becoming more affordable, most Indian youth are accessing internet through their handset. According to a mobile survey conducted by IPSOS & Google, Indian smartphone users are accessing the Internet more than their counterparts in the US. The survey reveals that 36 per cent of all smartphone owners in India are in the age group of 18- 29.

‘NIIT Cloud CampusTM’ enables students to learn from the best teachers irrespective of their geographical location. They can also get hands-on practice through lab exercises in machine rooms at the NIIT centres. It has an innovative ‘Anywhere Lab’ feature, which allows students to practice the application of concepts learnt in class, from any part of the globe, while chatting with experts to seek answers to their queries.

This presents a tremendous opportunity to reach quality education to the youth through the Cloud technology.

G Raghavan, Chief Executive, Career Building Solutions, NIIT Ltd., said, “The pioneering ‘NIIT Cloud Campus’, will be rolled out to 300 locations by end of 2013, and will reach over 5,00,000 students by 2014. We will offer almost 100 courses, including many new-age courses, under the Cloud Campus. Backed by powerful technologies, this cloud and collaborative platform puts the power to learn in the hands of the students by making “learning with buddies” and “learning anytime and anywhere” possible.”

For students of Engineering & Non-Engineering, NIIT Cloud CampusTM offers courses in IT, Banking, Global Finance and Management. These courses are packed with Learning enablers that - enhance team work & ability to do projects in a distributed environment through Collaborative Learning; impart Information Search & Analysis Skills as part of learning methodology; develop problem solving skills and industry readiness through Anywhere Lab; and makes available technology enabled learning environment that promotes research & collaborative orientation.

For Graduates seeking a career-ready education the benefits range from imparting Employability Enhancement Skills & Customized Training in domains across IT, Banking, Global Finance, Management,  to access to multiple experts and real time guidance through ‘Lesson on Demand’ to be Job Ready. Cutting-edge programs on Digital & Social Media Marketing are available to graduates through NIIT Cloud CampusTM.

For Working Professionals looking for career advancement, NIIT Cloud Campus provides specialized new technology & advanced skills program through Cloud Classrooms tailored to working professionals’ needs along with Continuous Online Assessment to enable effective learning.

Cloud enabled learning, owing to its 24x7, any-time, anywhere availability and scalability, can prove to be a big boon for the Indian education sector. NIIT will now make it possible to take high-quality education—including content, and instruction—to the far reaches of the country, using the Cloud platform.