Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government celebrated the World Youth Skills Day (WYSD) with signing of four MoUs to enhance skill competency and employablity of State youth.

The first virtual MoU was shared between Rashmita Panda, director, employment-cum-CEO, Odisha Skill Development Authority (OSDA)  and Nishtha Satyam, deputy country representative, UN Women. The partnership with UN Women will lead to design and implementation of ongoing and new skilling initiatives from a gender perspective and thereby contributing to women epowerment and gender equality. 

 Rasmita Panda also signed an MoU with Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO, Coursera. Collaboration with Coursera as a response to COVID-19 pandemic will facilitate the up-skilling and re-skilling of  youth from the state of Odisha in the areas of latest courses like Data Science, Technology etc.

The third MoU was shared between Reghu G, director, DTE&T and Sakhyasingha, founder, SAK Robotics. SAK Robotics will progressively cover all ITIs in the State to create exposure for ITI students to include robotics skills in their respective domains.

The fourth MoU was shared between OSDA and TimesPro (Partner of SAP). Partnership with Times Pro (Partner of SAP) will enable Skilled-in-Odisha youth from government engineering and professional institutes to get trained in SAP ERP courses that will enable them to compete in global market place for better opportunities and also create a talent pool for the Information Technology (IT) Industry both in India and in our State.  This was shared between  Rashmita Panda, Director, Employment-cum-CEO, OSDA and Mr. Anish  Srikrishna, CEO, Bennett Coleman and Company Limited (Times Professional Learning) and Rajesh Musaliyath , COO, Digital Services, SAP.

Congratulating everyone on the occasion the chief minister Naveen Patnaik said, “ I am glad to learn that in these testing times, when the COVID 19 pandemic has raised new challenges to mankind, the skill eco-system of Odisha has taken  a giant step forward in innovation for facing the emergent challenges. I am confident that there collaborations will lead to more opportunities for our youth at the global level and will make skill aspirational for them.”

SD & TE minister Premananda Nayak,OSDA chairman Subroto Bagchi, SD&TE secretary Sanjaya Kumar Singh and DTE &T director Reghu G addressed the digital meet.