Among all who opt for engineering as their profession, rare are those who truly believe in inspiring fresh graduates to build something ‘fresh’ with the R&D potential. With the mission statement of making India a country of R&D-centric talent, Bhumika Indu, via UpSkul is helping the students to gain core industry-ready engineering to serve the manufacturing industries.
Building something new and that on all of our own is vital for Portraying India as an industrial and manufacturing hub. But, a major challenge in eying the R&D growth is the inclination among youth towards the profit statement offered by the service sector in the form of high-paying jobs. Based out of Jabalpur, Bhumika turned this challenge into an opportunity to make the engineering graduates the industry experts of innovation. Conversing with Machine Maker, Bhumika spoke on her pioneering initiative ‘UpSkul’ which recently has been selected for incubation under Jabalpur Incubation Center.
More than an eLearning academy, UpSkul is an online R&D institute, which has trained than 1500 students with different engineering courses to make engineering graduates the industry experts. “With live project experience and tutorials, UpSkul aims to build a strong candidature of students in R&D field to build something new, rather than working for the service sectors,” said Bhumika, on the UpSkul
The wakeup call halfway
After graduating in Mechanical Engineering from Gyan Ganga Institute of Technology and Sciences, Jabalpur, Bhumika was in the service sector, in Tata Technologies for two and a half years. But, like many entrepreneurs who realize in the middle of their journey that it is now the right time to bring a change, Bhumika realized to start something on their own, for transforming the engineering culture.
“Once I realized that the service sector was only pushing the individuals into secondary projects no R&D is going on, I decided to choose a path which will add more value to professionals in the form of core industry skills with research mindset,” she said on the inspiration for UpSkul. She also pursued a design engineering course which made her realize that design engineering culture needs more progress in India. Subsequently, in May 2020, she started the UpSkul initiative, which she initially used to promote via social media channels.
“Major challenge was that to find the proper platform which could provide better guidance regarding the R&D skills and core industry skills. Initially, we started with social media platforms but soon I decided to start an online institute which can help the students realize their actual potential and create their mindset for R&D roles,” she added on overcoming the challenges.
Channelizing core Industrial training in Multiple Phases
In the midst of modern industrialization and manufacturing revolutions, industry-ready skills cannot be learned in one shot. Also, designing the curriculum of such technical education is indispensable which can let the industries grow at a smoother pace.
Making the tech-enabled learning in different phases, UpSkul offers courses at different levels based on the requirement of individuals to ensure that the course is perfectly channelized. The duration of the industry-tech courses is from 15 days to 3 months. Besides, the institute is also planning to launch six-month diploma courses in various domains. The basic training of 15-30 days costs just Rs 2000 while the three-month courses cost Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000. Further, 6-month diploma courses are also expected to be launched. Notably, the institute, at present has a panel of 15 to 17 mentors who have trained industry personnel, which is foretold to be expanded.
UpSkil offers courses empowered with video demonstration, CAD assistance, AI-enabled doubt solver, and more to provide practical-based learning in a virtual environment. It has diverse courses such as SolidWorks (Basics), Waste Management, Lean Manufacturing, Advanced QC Tools, 7QC Tools, Instrumentation engineering for electrical engineers, Automotive Seating Design, Electric Vehicle Design.
“Though the Industries and OEMs offer various employment opportunities. But, due to limited exposure to industry-ready learning, Indian Engineers, despite being capable face challenges in designing and developing something innovative. With our courses which are developed as per the industry standards, we are helping the students to overcome those challenges,” said UpSkul’s founder on the courses offered.
Bhumika also said that the institute can help students as well industries to set up their R&D centres on their shop floors. Moreover, the institute also aims to help innovators, startups and entrepreneurs who are catering to research and development.
“As our future commitment, we aim to cater into 100 different industries and 100 different engineering colleges to expand our vision of making Indian Engineers are to be able to bring innovative products rather than serving the existing product lines in the market,” concluded Bhumika on the Mission statement of UpSkul.
