GITAA: Enabling Learners Acquire Cutting Edge Machine Learning and AI Skills Today

Gnanam Institute for Training in Advance Analytics (GITAA) is founded by professors Shankar Narasimhan and Raghunathan Rengaswamy from Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IITM). They bring in a wealth of expertise and knowledge in data sciences, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). The IIT Madras incubation ecosystem backs this initiative. Courses are developed by highly experienced academicians from IITM and faculty from other institutions in India. GITAA offers world class training in the field of data science, machine learning and other allied topics.

GITAA's mission is "To develop world class data scientists and AI specialists."

GITAA offers applied courses for students / professionals who are interested in learning and embarking on a career in data science or reskilling themselves. The courses have been designed based on the job requirements in the industry. These courses have an equal balance of theory and practical knowledge which will help participants apply their learning in their jobs. Courses in ML and AI are offered at several levels. GITAA's courses cater to students at a beginner level all the way to data science practitioners in industry who want to train themselves on the latest advancements in this field. The mode of delivery could be online, live online or classroom training. All the courses developed have a strong practical orientation with a capstone case study that allows participants to understand how the material that they have learnt is applied in practice.

Leadership

The two co-founders of the institute, Profs. Raghunathan Rengaswamy and Shankar Narasimhan have tremendous experience in this field both as academics and as practitioners (through their data science company Gyan Data). They have also offered consultancy services in this area to multiple industries from IIT Madras. This combination allows them to develop solid course content with a real practical orientation.

Gaining Competitive Edge with Prestigious Academics

The edge the institute's Analytics and Data Science Program has over other institutes in the industry are:

•  Creme de la creme faculty members hailing from IITs and other prestigious academic institutions

•  Faculty pool comprising of 'Subject Matter Experts' with years of solid experience

•  Combined talent and resource pool from IITM network allow for continuous engagement and access to an up-to-date, cutting-edge research pool

•  Practical case studies drawn from parent company – Gyan Data Pvt. Ltd.

•  GITAA's proven delivery technique of combined learning – Theoretical + Practical application + One-on-one Consulting enables IMMERSIVE in-depth clarification of concepts

•  First mover advantage: Marriage of domain and data science. The first of its kind courses for the manufacturing sector

Practical Exposure through Significant Case Studies

At GITAA, students are offered a wealth of practical experience through multiple case studies developed in-house. These case studies have a strong practical orientation, which is fueled by the data science projects executed by the parent company Gyan Data Pvt. Ltd.

Enabling Learners to Re-skill Themselves

GITAA's courses are being taken up by aspiring students wanting to skill themselves in this area, working professionals looking to re-skill/up-skill and corporates looking to develop internal capacity. Prof. Raghunathan says, "Faculty from colleges are also enrolled in its courses, which has the potential to have a multiplier effect in terms of skill development. Several thousands of students have already through GITAA's various programs."

Esteemed Accolades and Recognitions

The professors, in a bid to democratize education, have offered their courses on the IITM NPTEL platform. TA support for these courses is offered by GITAA. One of the courses – 'Python for Data Science' saw ~56,840 enrolments and was adjudged as one among the top 30 MOOC courses introduced in 2019 around the world.

The institute has a partnership agreement with IIT Madras Digital Skills Academy, through which it has delivered data science and big data courses to several countries in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Through GITAA's partnership with the Robert Bosch Center for Data Science and AI (RBC-DSAI), the former has offered courses to defense organizations in India.

Moreover, through a tripartite agreement between Stella Maris college and Liverpool Hope University in UK, a new MSc program in data science is slated to start in the middle of this year.

With the help of IIT Madras Digital Skills Academy and partnership with other companies, GITAA is primed to offer a Women Back to Work course that will help women who took a career break to get back into the workforce.

The Strive to Address Quality Challenges

According to Prof. Raghunathan, maintaining quality at scale is the biggest challenge facing all data science training institutes. Moreover, he says, GITAA constantly strive to address this challenge.

Key Factors Driving Industry Growth

"Cheap storage, IOT, ever increasing computational power and democratization of programming platforms are the key drivers for the growth of this industry," says Prof. Raghunathan.

A Peak into the Future

Prof. Raghunathan expects to see continued exponential growth of the industry for the next few years after which the market will stabilize with players who are agile and are able to deliver high quality content at scale.