We have earmarked another ₹150 crore for expansion in the next three years, said Siddharth Sahani, executive president and co-founder Atlas SkillTech University
We have earmarked another ₹150 crore for expansion in the next three years, said Siddharth Sahani, executive president and co-founder Atlas SkillTech University
Atlas SkillTech University, Maharashtra’s first multidisciplinary skills university, is planning to mobilise ₹150 crore to fuel its next round of growth.
The private not-for-profit university was set up last year at Bandra-Kulra Complex (BKC) with an initial grant of ₹150 crore from upGrad, an online higher education company co-founded by philanthropist Ronnie Screwvala.
“We have already invested ₹150 crore in building up the university towards infrastructure, faculty and high-quality international partnerships for curriculum and towards scholarships,” said Siddharth Sahani, executive president and co-founder Atlas SkillTech University.
“And we have earmarked another ₹150 crore for expansion in the next three years,” he added.
“We see a lot of other corporates wanting to come together and work with us. We will be mobilising ₹100 crore through grants. The other well-wishers as well who want to contribute can do so,” Mr. Sahani said.
The university, which currently focuses on three new-age disciplines namely design, entrepreneurship and technology, is gearing up to introduce additional courses relating to the new-economy for creating talent for high value jobs both in India and abroad.
“We are very excited about digital content creation. So, film and animation will come. We will also look at new media and we will also look at something in healthcare, because it needs urgent attention,” Mr. Sahani said.
“So we will pick up anything that is digital, anything that is service-oriented, anything that is scalable in the new-economy,” he added.
On the current trend, he said design education is in demand. “All our students, whether working on electric cars, on UI, UX [User Interface, User Experience] technologies, whether working on IoT [Internet of Things], we see that everyone wants to focus on design,” he added.
Atlas has an advisory board chaired by HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh. Others on the board include Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla’s son Aryaman Birla, CEAT managing director Anant Goenka, and the India heads of McKinsey and Bain.
“The idea for us was to build a highly innovative university that would, give the next generation courses to our bright students to ensure that their job be competitive.
So that we can generate human capital that is very valuable for the country,” Mr. Sahani said on his vision behind starting the university.
“It is also about access and affordability. So how can we also bring these programs to the bottom of the pyramid? Not all parents can afford to send their children to study abroad,” he added.
