HIGHLIGHTS There is good demand for data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, big data and others in the competitive world, says Prof Hemachandra Reddy, Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh State Higher Education Council One month training programme for assistant professors of engineering colleges begins About 2,500 faculty members from various engineering colleges from all 13 districts in the State enroll for the programme Training aimed to help improve skills of assistant professors Dr Arja Srikanth, Managing Director and Executive Officer of APSSDC, says the faculty development programme for the staff of the engineering colleges and the polytechnic colleges is being undertaken with the help of specialists in various fields from various companies Tadepalli: Data Science is playing an important role in the software sector, said Prof Hemachandra Reddy, Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh State Higher Education Council, while inaugurating the month-long training programme for the assistant professors of engineering colleges along with Ram Tavva, CEO of Hyderabad-based ExcelR at the Andhra Pradesh State Skill Development Corporation (APSSDC) office here on Monday. Hemachandra Reddy said that there was much demand for data science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, cloud computing, big data and others in the competitive world. The training would help the assistant professors to improve their skills. He suggested to the assistant professors to teach coding to the students to enable them to secure software jobs. About 2,500 faculty members of various engineering colleges throughout the 13 districts in the State got registered their names to take part in the training programme. Challa Madhusudan Reddy, chairman of APSSDC, said that the APSSDC has been providing free training in all wings to the assistant professors of engineering colleges and students to enable them to secure employment in the software sector. "The training would help the assistant professors to improve their skills," he said. Dr Arja Srikanth, managing director and executive officer of APSSDC, said that faculty development programme for the staff of the engineering colleges and the polytechnic colleges is being undertaken with the help of specialists in various fields from various companies. He said that online free certification course for the students was introduced as summer internship which would help the students to improve their skills. CEO of ExcelR Ram Tavva said that the training which would cost Rs 50,000 is being provided free of cost to the faculty. APSSDC technical chief general manager Dr Ravi Gujjula said that there would be two batches per day to give training to 2,500 members. The staff and students of various engineering colleges also participated in the inaugural programme.