Karnataka's Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports has entered an LoU (Letter of Understanding) with the UNDP -- United Nation's Development Programme, as part of the state-level initiative 'Code-Unnati', with an aim to improve access to entrepreneurship and employment opportunities among youth including women.
The LoU was signed in presence of C.N. Ashwath Narayan (seen in photo), Minister for Higher Education, IT/BT, and Skill Development, at Vidhan Soudha on Friday.
Speaking on the occasion, he said, the initiative involving United Nations Volunteers (UNV) will be implemented in 4 districts of Bengaluru Rural, Ramanagara, Dakshina Kannada, and Raichuru to start with.
The LoU intends to provide a platform for cooperation between UNDP and the Department of Youth Empowerment and Sports to ensure joint implementation of the activities in close coordination with state, district, college level NSS units, the Minister said.
As part of this 50 colleges including Government Pre-University, ITIs, Polytechnics, and Arts & Science colleges have been identified to work with the faculties and students community.
They will work together in areas of Training and Capacity Building, Training on 21st century and Digital Skills, Entrepreneurship Development, Innovation Challenges/Boot Campus, Corporate Volunteering, and Industry Connect.
As part of training on 21st-century skills and digital skills, 20,000 students of 50 selected colleges (two academic years) will be trained on career guidance through psychometric assessment and counselling followed by digital skills wherein 200 hours of the module will be delivered, he explained.
Amith Kumar, Head, UNDP India; Sindu Gangadharan, Director, SAP Labs India; S. Selvakumar, ACS, Department of Skill Development; Ashwin Gowda, MD, Skill Development Corporation, and Shalini Rajaneesh, ACS, Dept of Planning and Statistics were also present on the occasion.
