Creating a Digital Ecosystem for Skilling and Livelihood
Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in his address on education and skilling, expressed that if ever there was a time to reap India’s demographic dividend, it is now! The delivery of content via digital tools and digital content will be imperative, for which our trainers must be trained. There is a need to redefine our job roles, aligning them to today’s industrial requirements. The introduction of digital ecosystem for skilling and livelihood and setting up of e-labs is an endeavor towards achieving the goal of a skilled and empowered nation.
Announced in the Union Budget 2022, Digital Ecosystem for Skilling and Livelihood (#DESHstack) is a digital infrastructure with governing protocols for the education and skills community. An initiative under Skill India Mission, DESH aims to meet challenges of information asymmetry and discoverability by mapping trainees to trainers, trainer to training providers cutting across all stakeholders in the skilling value chain. In line with Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision of mandating vocational education/ skill training in the education ecosystem, DESH, will act as a tool that bridges the gap between demand and supply of skilled workforce. The adoption of digital solutions in the skilling sector has been incremental. The skilling sector is poised to gain from the advancements and learnings of various successful Digital India initiatives.
A digital ecosystem, DESH, will allow a frictionless exchange for skill development, deployment, associated supply chain, and enabling services. It is a set of configurable, extendable, modular open-source digital building blocks, with robust data privacy. It will act as a unifying framework that will allow many platforms, applications, service providers, business models to innovate with the underlying framework, protocols, and specifications.(Visit: www.deshstack.io).
To be implemented by National Skill Development Corporation, under the aegis of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, the DESH stack shall be a building block towards empowerment that will utilize existing infrastructure of National Digital Education Architecture, Aadhaar, Permanent Account Number (PAN), Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN), DigiLocker, Public Financials Management System (PFMS), Aadhaar-enabled payment system (AEPS), UPI, scalable CO-WIN registries, MeitY’s open-source policy, Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture (DEPA), and more. The is configured on a three-layered framework—trust, finance, and discovery. Trust layer is to enable verifiable digital credentials designed for portability, permanence, and inclusion and reusable electronic registries as a single source of truth. The payment layer is to enable services such as direct beneficiary transfer, rewards, scholarships, among others. The Discovery layer will remove information asymmetry and help all stakeholders find the right products, services and opportunities. DESH will create a marketplace for innovative ideas, skill matching, learning paths, mentoring, financing in the ecosystem, thereby opening several doors to livelihood. It aims to create a community of contributors and creators in the area of skill and learning to drive innovation. By engaging Startups, DESH aims to encourage youth towards innovation and cultivate a culture of Incubation centers across the nation. Whether you are a student, a school dropout, a working professional, a trainer a start-up, or a service provider, the users will be able to register on the DESH portal and benefit from its services. Let’s take a few examples – Amit wants to upskill himself in artificial intelligence while finishing his graduation. Simran, a mathematics teacher, wants to impart education to students across India. Rehman, an entrepreneur, wants to hire resources in data analytics for his company.
The platform will be one-stop-solution for all skilling, upskilling, employment opportunities, getting skill loans, and other industry linkages. Working towards the Sustainable Development Goals (#SDG) of eliminating poverty and providing quality education, DESH will empower youth and make them self-reliant for an #AatmanirbharBharat.
