Microdegrees to reduce skills gap

(From left) Sumitra, Rony Ambrose, Ku, Prof Ansary and Anthony Raja at the launch of AeU Microdegree Programme.

Micro-credentials are fast moving to the forefront of professional education in recognising the value of expertise.

As one of the region’s most innovative digital universities, Asia e University (AeU) is embracing the growing trend by inking an agreement with iTrain Asia to design the country’s first digital technology micro-credentials programme.

The partnership focuses on reskilling non-tech individuals and is aimed at helping the global community advance into the fourth Industrial Revolution by speeding up minimisation of the skills gap.

The goal of the collaboration is to train 1,000 non-tech graduates in the field of data engineering, full-stack development, UX design and deep learning (AI) by the year 2022.

“AeU has always been at the forefront of innovative human capital.

“Microdegrees is one such effort to meet the challenge of equipping the workforce with bite-sized education for immediate impact to rejuvenate the economy,” shared AeU founder president Prof Datuk Dr Ansary Ahmed at the signing ceremony held at AeU campus in Subang Jaya.

For the employment of graduates, iTrain Asia has also signed a partnership at the same time with National Information and Communications Technology Association of Malaysia (Pikom).

Additionally, iTrain Asia is open to partner with individual employers, one of them being Skymind Holding Bhd, which commits to employing 50 deep learning engineers with a starting salary of RM4,000.

The AeU Microdegree programme, which is now open for registration, offers four courses – Full-Stack Developer, Data Engineer, UX Designer and Deep Learning Engineer.

“This programme is designed to build more technology inventors instead of technology consumers.

“With an increase in digital talent, we are able to be more responsive to rapid globalisation and new business demands,” said iTrain Group executive director Eric Ku.

The schedule of these programmes is compact, with a balanced combination of 70% lectures and practical classes and 30% of real world projects that push individuals to reach their full potential.

“It turns out, most software projects do not fail on the back of technical challenges but for human reasons.

“The programme tries to incite personal development in ways that will help students succeed in the high-pressure tech working environment.

“Designed to replicate real-world scenarios, the programme is extremely intense while the curriculum is consistently iterated based on feedback from employers, where it gets more challenging and demanding in real-time,” said Ku.

In conjunction with the event, a virtual forum, moderated by iTrain Group DX School dean Mano Govindaraju, was held on topics related to “Micro-Credentials: Bridging the Digital Talent Gap.”

The forum’s panelists were Prof Ansary, Ku, Human Resources Development Fund chief programmes officer Rony Ambrose Gobilee, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation vice-president Dr Sumitra Nair and Pikom Academy chairman Anthony Raja Devadoss.

For details on micro-credential programmes, visit www.itrainasia.com/microdegree, email [e-mail] or call 012-798 0072.