Autodesk and NPTEL Partner to Bring World Class Engineering Education to the Masses

Autodesk, a leader in 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software, today announced a partnership with National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) to extend the reach of engineering education and increase the number of skilled engineering graduates nationwide.

An initiative by the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) that is funded by the Ministry of Human Resource Development of India, NPTEL makes high quality learning material available to students of engineering institutions across the country by leveraging advances in information and communication technology.

Under the agreement, Autodesk will collaborate with NPTEL as well as their associate partners – including the National Institute of Technology Karnataka in Surathkal, SASTRA University in Thanjavur and PSG College of Technology in Coimbatore – to jointly develop courses around civil and mechanical engineering and other related disciplines. This will ensure that students learn to master the industry tools, techniques and workflows and graduate prepared for professional practice. These will then be made available to students via NPTEL’s robust e-learning platform.

The MOU was signed at Autodesk University India in Mumbai and represents the first time that NPTEL is partnering with a multinational company to jointly develop curricula around design education that closely reflects industry demands and complements the existing national curricula.

“NPTEL is a national program that works to improve the quality of higher education in India by leveraging information and communications technology (ICT) as well as industry collaborations, such as our partnership with Autodesk. This enables NPTEL to offer technical, faculty and industry support to develop industry-relevant educational programs and certification in all areas of science, engineering, humanities, arts, social sciences, law, agriculture and management via ICT tools,” said Prof. Mangala Sunder Krishnan, NPTEL Coordinator, IIT Chennai.

This collaboration builds on the free* access that all secondary and post-secondary academic institutions in India have to professional 3D design software from Autodesk via the Autodesk Academic Resource Center, including Autodesk Inventor, Autodesk Revit, Autodesk AutoCAD, Autodesk 3ds Max, and Autodesk Maya. 

“Today what India lacks is not a supply of graduates. Rather, our customers have unfilled, high-paying positions due to the lack of qualified graduates with the requisite technical skills and knowledge of industry workflows and best practices to hit the ground running. Autodesk and NPTEL have a shared commitment to train and equip an industry-ready workforce, and our Computer Aided Design tools and expertise combined with NPTEL’s Computer Aided Instruction platform will see us delivering the highest quality of engineering education to all schools and institutions nationwide,” said Tom Joseph, Senior Director of Education, Autodesk.

NPTEL reaches 12 million users globally, 80 percent of whom are from India, 6 percent are from the US, and the rest are spread out around the world. Within India, students form around 65 percent of users while teachers form approximately 15 percent.

About NPTEL

NPTEL has the objective of improving the quality of science and engineering education in India and has assembled a team of more than 1500 faculty so far for providing structured and peer reviewed contents to about 1000 courses with a duration of 40 plus hours of class study. It is also the first open educational video resource provider in the world to provide free and unlimited access to all its videos (more than 15000 at present and with English subtitles to half of them at present) and offers its contents with the Creative Commons license CC BY SA. It provides high quality learning free to every citizen of the world. (Rabindranath Tagore: “Where learning is free”) In the coming months, NPTEL, in partnership with industry, will also provide proctored certification programs under the general name of NOC (NPTEL Online Certification) using the experience gained in MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).

About Autodesk

Autodesk helps people imagine, design and create a better world. Everyone—from design professionals, engineers and architects to digital artists, students and hobbyists—uses Autodesk software to unlock their creativity and solve important challenges. For more information visit autodesk.com or follow @autodesk.

*Free Autodesk software and/or cloud-based services may only be used for educational purposes and are subject to acceptance of and compliance with the terms and conditions of the software license agreement or terms of service.  Details and restrictions available at http://usa.autodesk.com/legal-notices-trademarks.

Autodesk, the Autodesk logo, AutoCAD, 3ds Max, Inventor, Maya and Revit are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. All other brand names, product names, or trademarks belong to their respective holders. Autodesk reserves the right to alter product and services offerings, and specifications and pricing at any time without notice, and is not responsible for typographical or graphical errors that may appear in this document.

© 2014 Autodesk, Inc. All rights reserved.