 Balaji, can you please confirm when we are live? Sir, we are live now, please start. Hello, sir. And the question is, how familiar are you with this? Sir, we are live now, please start. You can unmute the mic. Thank you, Balaji. Very good morning to all of you and welcome to this NPTEL awareness workshop. And my name is Balraj and part of the industry relations team as part of NPTEL. And today I'm going to talk more about NPTEL and how NPTEL will have a great impact in your career and how NPTEL can be very, very useful for all of you. We will discuss more as part of this workshop. And you also remember, if you have any feedback or queries, there'll be a feedback form that we displayed in another 30 minutes by 1030 in the description of the YouTube link, and you can post your feedback and the feedback. So I'm sure all of you must have heard the word NPTEL, but I'll explain more about NPTEL now. What is NPTEL? NPTEL is National Program on Technology Enhanced Learning. And you can see it started in 2003. And up to 2014, we have been creating content and we have been creating content repository for self-learning purpose. So what do we mean by that? We created videos, we created web courses. Mostly for self-consumption. And that means you can learn, you can actually watch these content for free on YouTube. So all this is available in public domain. So I'll share more about that self-learning content again when we go to the next slide. And from 2014, we started something called NPTEL Online Certification. And very, very different and unique from a self-learning perspective because this format is actually like a regular semester course where it's offered online. It's called MOOC, Massive Online Open Course, where you can actually take these courses online and eventually get satisfied from NPTEL and IITs. So I'll explain more about the certification program. And last six years, we have been running this NPTEL Online Certification. And NPTEL Online Certification has been very, very popular. And that's how we are actually growing very big in terms of our enrollment and in terms of our exams. I'll share more about that. And just to give you the participating institutions list, logos are displayed there. You can see IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, Gahoti, Kanpur, Karakpur, Madras, Turkey and ISC Bank. And these are all IITs which are coordinating NPTEL. And this is completely funded by MHRD. Now it's called Ministry of Education. And there's a lot of support from the government in the last 18 years. And that's how NPTEL has become very, very popular. And I would be happy to say that NPTEL is one of the largest projects in India in education space. So very, very unique in that perspective. I'm very happy that you're all here today morning to listen to me on the NPTEL. So more about NPTEL impact and infrastructure. So just to give you some data and statistics about NPTEL. So till now we have offered more than 2,200 courses as of December 2020. Similarly, we have 1 billion plus YouTube views and 3.1 million YouTube subscribers and 44,000 hours of content. And so you can see the scale at which we are operating very, very large in terms of reach, in terms of what we are offering as a number of courses or number of hours of content. So we have been very, very, I would say continuously improving our contents and also continuously reaching out and innovating, trying to offer something better on a yearly basis. So I'll share more with you as we were talking and I'm sure you will get a lot more insights about what we are trying to do. As I explained you, from 14 we have been offering online certification courses that became very, very popular now. And now we are adding a lot more features to what we are offering and trying to help you improve yourself better and trying to add as many new features and new programs into the initiative as much as possible. And we are trying to make it as relevant as possible for you. And we want to see all NPTEL learners to have great impact by using NPTEL in terms of their learning, in terms of their knowledge, in terms of their skills, eventually in terms of their career. So the most important thing that I think for today will be online certification from NPTEL. And why we are unique and why we are different, you can see we are offering this from 2014. And till date, 2,400 plus courses have been offered for online certification. And from Jan 2021, we are offering 500 plus courses. And those of you who want to look at the courses, go to swime.gov.in slash NPTEL. SWIME is the platform that we are part of and NPTEL courses are offered through SWIME platform. SWIME is a larger platform that is run by the Ministry of Education for all the online courses in India. And NPTEL is part of SWIME. And you can actually go to the swime.gov.in or download SWIME app and start accessing NPTEL courses. And in Jan 2021, we are offering 500 plus courses, which is very, very large. And I'm sure a lot of you will be able to look at the courses and find relevant courses so that you can actually subscribe. And just to give you numbers of the scale at which we are operating. So 1.24 crore enrollments till date, which means almost you can see last six years we have got 1.24 crore enrollments, which is very, very large scale in terms of response and every semester we have been getting around 2 million enrollments. So last three, four semesters have been getting continuous growth in terms of enrollments. And what do you mean by enrollment and what is an exam registration? So almost 1.24 lakh exam registrations. So one of the important aspects of NPTEL online certification and why it has become very, very popular. You all should know this because of the in-person certification. That means every student who enrolls will have an optional exam if you want to take up an in-person certification exam. And this is offered across the country, across various centers in India. And those of you who want to take up this in-person certification can actually subscribe for it. And then you are given a center which is closest to your location. Then you actually take up the certification. And if you pass the certification, you get a certificate from IIT. And the IIT which is offering that particular course will give you the certificate or the IIC. And very importantly, many students have registered as many as 11.24 lakh students have registered for these exams in the last six years. And what we have seen is many people who complete these exams will gain a lot of confidence and satisfaction that they have cleared an IIT standard exam. And for those of you who are taking these exams very seriously, you should remember these certifications can add a lot of value because they come with the IIT logo. And it is issued from NPTEL and Swam logo is there. It will be with your photograph. And there will be the course name, your name, and the score you have got in that particular exam. And this is very, very useful when you go for jobs, higher education, whatever you might do. And it's completely e-verified. So because the certification is from IIT, there's a lot of interest from learners to be part of this kind of, I would say MOOC courses offered through NPTEL. And that is the reason this 1.24 crore enrollment is there. And you will see lakhs of registrations in terms of exams. So there's a lot of interest from learners to be part of this. And that is the reason we feel you also know more about this and choose courses that are of interest to you. And that's the reason we are here today to discuss more about NPTEL. Some more statistics about how NPTEL courses are offered and the kind of numbers that has been there in the last, I would say, six years across various semesters, you will see the slide and you will get a lot of insights. You can see, we started with three courses. Now, in 2020, we offered a total of 800 plus courses and which is not an easy thing for NPTEL to get up to that scale. But the reason it is possible is there's a lot of participation from learners and there's a lot of support from IIT system and the government to make it happen. And that's the reason we are here in terms of seeing this scale. And now we are trying to reach out to a larger audience. As part of that, we are trying to create this awareness workshop. And we are also creating this, I would say, awareness to all the students and faculty as part of these awareness activities. And we want you to see that you understand what is the value of NPTEL and how you can actually benefit from it. And why NPTEL is very popular and what is offered as part of MOOCs. The course contents are available in the form of video lectures and they are all available in the login. Once you actually register for SWAM portal, you will be able to access these videos for the course once the course starts. Similarly, there are regular assignments, objectives, subject to programming kind, all kinds of assignments are possible. And based on the course that is being offered, your assignments are defined and you have to submit their assignments in time. Then you have text transcripts also available and lab demos are also available wherever it is relevant. Then similarly, we are also organizing live interactive sessions by various faculty offering the course. And I'm sure many of you will be interested in some of these interactions. Similarly, we are offering discussion forums. And this is very, very useful because a lot of you who think this is an online course, how do I clarify my doubts? You can actually participate in the discussion forum and there is a course supporting available, helping you to answer your queries. And the discussion forum is available to all of you who are taking the course for posting your queries. And then there will be, I would say, teaching assistants who are nominated by the faculty and they will be answering your queries. So that is the reason this became very, very popular because there are a lot of interesting things for all of you to participate. It will be a typical semester course, but completely offered online. That's the reason it's called MOOC. And in Jan, 500 plus courses are there for certification, which is not an easy thing 10 years back. So many courses were not available for students to consider. And this is a fantastic opportunity. I suggest all of you to make use of this opportunity. So what are the courses offered as part of this MOOC platform, SWAN platform and NPTEL? These are actually indicative lists that are shown in this slide. Just to give you what are the type of courses available. We have humanities and management courses, the courses in civil engineering, which are advanced level, the courses in basic, I will say, electrical engineering. These are just sample lists and just showing you because we cannot show all the final courses in one slide. We want to just give you an overall idea of what kind of courses that are offered as part of NPTEL, so that you actually understand what is there in NPTEL and why people are so much interested to take up NPTEL courses. And we also have these job oriented or skill development courses in computer science because today a lot of them, I would say, in terms of jobs are available in the CS space and data science and machine learning programming. So you have all the IOT. So all those relevant courses which are job oriented where you feel if you do this course, it will definitely help you in your interview or in your actual job. And that's where we are very, very different in terms of offering where we are trying to make it as relevant as possible. And coming back to why NPTEL is being consumed a lot in India in terms of large volume. As I was mentioning earlier, the proctored exam is the credible feature of NPTEL. Now, why it is very, very credible, I'll explain you a little more detail. Now, when you do a physical course, any of your campus courses that you take up, you actually take up a course and you write a physical in-person exam, which is actually proctored. And there is an evaluation which says you've done very well when you pass the course. Similarly, here, though the course is offered online, you are actually doing an in-person certification exam, which means though you're learning online, your evaluation is done through an in-person exam which is conducted by the IOT system through NPTEL. And if you pass the exam, you get a certificate from NPTEL and the respective IOT offering the course, which makes it very, very unique for a learner as well as anybody who's actually looking at your certificate will be able to understand. NPTEL is giving you something which is very, very unique unless you pass the course, you will not get the certificate. So that means you are actually carrying something when you actually become an NPTEL topper on your resume if you add. And if you actually list these other five courses in your resume that you have done in NPTEL, there is a value add that you're carrying on your profile, very, very important. And similarly, we are able to get this scale because we engage with colleges through our local chapter network and we call it local chapter colleges and we call it local chapter network. We have been blessed or I would say having support from almost 4,000 plus colleges as of today and fantastic response from the, I would say, the local chapter network of colleges. I'll give you more about the type of colleges we work with so that you understand and that's been very good for NPTEL in the last six years. And I'm sure your college is also a member of NPTEL, otherwise you can talk to your principal or you can talk to your faculty member requesting them to become a local chapter member. And each local chapter will have a single point of contact who will be coordinating with NPTEL trying to see how to utilize these courses for the benefit of the students. And other important thing I'm sure all of you will be interested to understand is how are we engaging with industry. So we work with companies where we try to collaborate with them, try to go for courses. In fact, we get a lot of inputs from the industry on what courses are more relevant as of today and how do we improve our curriculum. I'll share more about the industry associate program of NPTEL very soon. Then more importantly, all of you will be interested to know how this has grown so big and there's a credit transfer policy. So we engage with policy making bodies like UGC, AACTE in a format where we are trying to collaborate with them to see how this can impact all the learners. And that is the reason you will see NPTEL courses and SWIM courses are actually accepted as courses for credit transfer. So I think there is a policy in place which says 20% of the courses can be taken through SWIM or NPTEL. So you have that opportunity to take NPTEL courses through SWIM and get credit transferred to your actual degree. And I'll share more about that as we go further. So how do you enroll for NPTEL courses? Now all of you who are actually watching this session, you can actually go to SWIM.gov.in or download SWIM app and go to NPTEL, I would say, section there. And NPTEL is one of the national coordinators in that list of courses. So you will see NPTEL there, you can select NPTEL and you'll be able to see the list of courses as part of SWIM. And you will also see what are the courses that you think are relevant and you can actually watch some of the intro videos or the syllabus and make a decision how this course is relevant for me personally. And start actually looking at courses that are relevant for you and deciding which course I should actually take it up and finally enroll for it. And the enrollment is very simple, you can actually fill the form, fill the basic details and join the program. It's simple and it's as simple as joining Facebook, so that way it's not complicated. And after joining, what is the next step? So one step is joining, the other step is after joining, what do you do? You should actually start watching the videos once the course starts very diligently and very importantly, you should participate in the discussion forum activity, trying to ask your queries and you get answers to your queries and similarly submit assignments in time, wherever live sessions are happening, please participate. And if you feel this is a course which is of interest to you and you want to get certified in this course, you can actually pay the nominal fee of exam fee of rupees 1000 to participate in this certification exam, that is in person across various centers across the country and participate in all the assignments, write the exam and if you pass, you get the certificate. And more importantly, I would want to tell you, those these courses are offered from IIT, though it is completely, you know, I would say high quality program, because it's offered by IIT system and it's offered in a very world-class portal, which is the Swine portal. And it's all high funder in terms of technology or in terms of the delivery in terms of the course content, but you all have to remember this is offered for free and completely supported by the government and the IIT system to bring it to you for free. So the courses are completely for free for enrollment. And only if you want to write in-person exam, which is a certification exam, you have to pay rupees 1000 towards the operational expenses of the exam. And I would say this is a very, very unique opportunity for all learners of this generation who are trying to, you know, take up such courses, because earlier we never had, I would say 10, 15 years back, we never had such an opportunity to learn, I would say, subjects or courses from IIT system and get certified. Now you're getting all that at no cost and you may have to just pay for the exam fee if you're writing an exam. So that way, learning is completely democratized and it's all available for you. Only thing you need to do is you need to have interest to learn. I would say that's all is the need of the art. And if you have that, I'm sure you are in the right place and NPTEL is the right opportunity for you to give you a great, I would say, future in terms of career, in terms of knowledge, in terms of skills. So some of the tips that we generally share with the students based on our, I would say, learners, because we have various kinds of learners based on our experience, we want you to prepare your own notes, personal notes so that you actually capture what you're learning so that you can revise using those notes and submit assignments by yourself without copying or without taking it from anybody. And very importantly, you should participate in the discussion forum so that you know what's happening and also participate in the live sessions. And this is the sample certificate which I explained you earlier. This is a certificate from IIT Madras, a course offered from IIT. And so you can see the way certificate is there. And this is what makes it very, very unique for a learner to be motivated to take up these certifications. And that's one reason a lot of learners are taking NPTEL certificate. And how to choose right courses, so they find right courses across various disciplines, engineering, management, arts and science, and various medical courses are offered here. So how do you choose what courses are relevant for you? You should actually check with your university or college whether you have credit transfer policy being implemented with NPTEL. So if credit transfer policy is in place in your college or university, then you can actually select courses based on your, I would say curriculum and discuss with your faculty member and your sproxing point of contact for NPTEL. Try and understand what courses will be better and how is it being done in the college. The second area where it should be of interest to you is if you have NPTEL courses which are coming in your curriculum as electives and your college permits for credit transfer, that's also an area where you can focus on taking NPTEL. And more importantly, apart from the academics and the curriculum, if you think you want to expand your skill set in terms of breadth or depth and NPTEL courses are there available for you. And this will also help you to showcase in your resume, why I will explain you because today if you see millions of students are graduating every year including engineering and arts and science across various disciplines and branches and across various courses. So now, why will a recruiter recruit a particular student and why he should actually look at a student and say, I want to recruit you. So you need to differentiate yourself with respect to your knowledge skill and your performance in the interview, which will say recruiter, oh, this is the guy I want to recruit. And that is where you're going to make it very, very unique for yourself if you take up such courses and if you actually showcase your skills and knowledge in the, I would say, in your resume and eventually through your performance in the interview. And you should also look at what are the courses that are very popular on NPTEL so that you understand what are the rerun courses, what are the numbers in terms of registration so you know what are the courses which are popular so that you can actually choose is this course relevant for me as well. And these are various courses that are offered by various institutions, IIT Madras, you can see IIT Roque, Bombay, Kanpur, Karakpur, all courses are listed here across various disciplines are also given. And there are other IITs which are participating in other institutions like ISER, TRIPITs, you know, then University of Hyderabad, Delhi, then CMI, lot of Kela School of Mathematics so you have Texas A&M University also is participating. So a lot of universities are participating in this activity, I would say and I'm sure you will benefit from this I would say knowledge pool that is created through NPTEL platform and you're getting best faculty to teach you various courses through NPTEL platform. I would say this is very, very unique, it's not, I would say technically possible for you to learn otherwise from these best institutions, these best faculty through any other means and NPTEL is giving you that unique opportunity. And those of you who think I want to learn and this is the best place to be, I'm sure you will benefit a lot by taking a various courses of your choice. At the same time, NPTEL is very unique for one reason, you have a choice on what courses you should do. And that way it becomes very, very, you know, flexible for a learner, you decide what courses you want to learn and how you want to improve. And you also have advantage of saying I'll only take two courses in the semester, next semester I'm going to take three. So you can decide one to how many you want to do. And you can also decide one course I will do a certification, another course I'll do a regular course but I will not do a certification at the end. So you have all the advantage and flexibility to learn and you learn from the best faculty. And this is one more information I thought I should share with you is about the learner profile. And you should see, you know, the kind of people that are participating through the NPTEL platform and making use of it effectively and getting benefited. You see the data to be very, very interesting faculty are participating so that they can improve their knowledge. And they can also learn new domains through this platform. And there are 76% college students they're participating you can see the reasons they want to do credit transfer they want to prepare gate. They can use this for campus placement or some of them who are already in job they want to use this in their job because the job expects them to have certain skills where they can get through NPTEL courses and which is very, very important. Similarly, we have good participation from industry, I would say from companies where they feel NPTEL courses are relevant for their freshers as part of skill development, maybe for re-skilling upskilling, whatever you know type of skill they may look at. Especially new domains that we have new areas where they feel they need skill manpower. They're actually having the new recruits join NPTEL and take up NPTEL courses. Some of them may not take certification but they can actually learn NPTEL courses and they can get benefited a lot. And that's where we see it's helping wide variety of audience and this is the reason I would say a lot of learners want to, you know, reach out to NPTEL and learn from NPTEL. Another important aspect of NPTEL I think would be of interest to you is a little more advanced from a learner perspective is you do one or two NPTEL courses but you know how do you build expertise in a particular domain or particular area. So what we have started is as part of NPTEL we started creating domain certifications where you do a set of courses, 6 to 8 courses and you get a certificate in a particular domain. So these courses are listed in a particular domain like artificial intelligence, data science, programming, VLSI design, product design. It's actually a particular area in a branch of engineering or you would say English or it is like, you know, you specialize in an area and you get certified in that area. So it's going to be very, very useful from a learner perspective because you're going to be specialized in that area. And you're actually going to have an expertise to showcase it to your employer, maybe in the higher education, maybe for another such position. So that way it's going to be very, very unique as a learner for you to get this certification and all that you need to do is you don't have to do anything different from what you're doing by enrolling for NPTEL courses and taking the exam. You just have to complete the set of NPTEL courses, core and elective courses for that particular domain certification. So you can see some of the domains are listed, we have 41 plus domains in NPTEL, you can look for NPTEL domains and search. Then this is a unique opportunity where you can actually, you know, take up the domain of your interest, specialize in it and eventually I'm sure it's going to help you. So we have very, very unique domains where it satisfies all the interests of learners, we have domains in management, domains in English. So it's like, it's a choice that you need to make what domain you want to specialize in. And you need not specialize in the area that you are studying, if you're an electronics engineer, you can still go ahead and do a domain in artificial science or data science. So you have the choice or if you're a civil engineer, you can do a domain, something else. So you have the choice to, you know, get that expertise, but all you need to do is complete the set of courses, then you will be eligible to get a domain. And we are seeing very good, you know, response for domains. And this is a sample, I would say, domain in flight mechanics. And you have to complete minimum 50 weeks of learning to get a domain certification. You see, there are six courses here listed out of this, you have to complete four core courses. Similarly, out of the other five courses, which are electives, you have to complete two to get a domain in flight mechanics. So these are some of the domain scholars. A student, Pamir Roy, is able to get a domain in artificial science. And similarly, a lot of faculty have completed NPTEL domain certification and they're called domain scholars. And it's going to be very unique recognition and your photograph and the details are shared on the NPTEL website. We have a student who is with, who's I would say learner with Konkan Railways, but has a domain certification in power systems and power. So you can imagine whichever sphere of life you may be in terms of your career, but this domain certification is going to help you because it's like a specialization. And the certificate will be given from NPTEL that makes it even more unique for you to showcase when you go for whatever maybe it may be an employment, it may be a research position, it may be higher education. So wherever you attend an interview, particularly connected with knowledge and expertise, you will be respected with the certificate in a particular area that you're from NPTEL. And we've started something interesting to recognize our learners and give them some identity on our platform. We started, one is the domain scholars that we have discussed till now. Then we have something called NPTEL superstars, NPTEL evangelists, NPTEL motivated learners, NPTEL enthusiasts. And these are very, very unique because NPTEL stars we want to call them because they're very, very active in terms of their engagement with NPTEL. They're very, very excellent with respect to their participation, with respect to their sincerity towards learning. That's why we call them NPTEL stars. And I'm sure all of you can look at this link and we are trying to give them more benefits if they become NPTEL stars because we feel our stars are really stars. So we want to see that they eventually get various benefits through NPTEL. I'll share more about that as we go further. But we also want to recognize them saying they're not in the average crowd. They're actually very, very advanced and they've done something interesting with NPTEL to get this recognition. So you can see the NPTEL evangelists, for example, you can see present in at least 18 exams from 2016 to 19. It's not an easy thing in the four years of time. Writing 18 NPTEL exams is not going to be easy. Similarly, enthusiasts. So NPTEL enthusiasts appeared in at least eight exams. Again, it's not going to be easy. So these are very, very passionate learners and we feel we should give them that special identity on NPTEL platform. And I'm sure most of you who are serious learners will become NPTEL stars. I would like to wish all of you all the best to become NPTEL stars. And coming back to NPTEL local chapters that we were talking earlier. We have faculty and teaching distance from various IITs and IIC and NPTEL office coordinating across various IITs. And we have 4000 plus local chapters across various, I would say domains. You may call them engineering arts and science management. Some of them are universities and medical institutions, law. You can see the list where 4000 plus and across various I would say disciplines you will list them. You can see in this list and more importantly, I want to tell you NPTEL has a very strong partnership with this local chapters. And we have 80 plus, I would say registrations for the enrollment through local chapters. And that is the strength of a network and we believe local chapter network is always going to contribute a huge participation. One reason is there is a single point of contact in the college who's coordinating various activities and trying to help students, trying to help NPTEL also to see what is relevant, what courses are more relevant to students and telling us what are the problems students are facing. So it's a fantastic model for all of you to participate so that you can go to your spark if you have any queries. Even from choosing the course and eventually getting a certificate. So in fact, we have a team which actually coordinates with local chapters, coordinates with sparks trying to understand what their students are facing, where are they struggling if they have any issues with registration. So we kind of do a lot of activities through local chapter network. And this is another activity that we are trying to do, trying to do regional translation of these contents available into eight languages. These are some of the information that I thought I should actually include in the slide so that, you know, you get to know what NPTEL is trying to do for those of you who think language is a concern. So we are translating to various languages, I'm sure you will benefit from these languages. And these are some of the books where we have created regional language transcripts and English as well. And you will see these books are available and the link is available. After this session is over, you can actually go to this particular link in pital.ac.com slash translation, then look at these books and see what books are relevant for you. And this is another important aspect which I want to share with you is internship for students who are top person various courses offered by faculty and faculty are interested they can actually offer internships to these learners who are top us. When I say learners, they're only students, basically, the faculty who's offering the course can give this internship opportunity to these students who are top us in that particular course. And this will be two week, four week or six week or eight week internship, and faculty will will choose the, I would say students based on the exam performance in the particular NPTEL exam, and maybe an interview is conducted to select students. But this is completely driven by the faculty so faculty should come up with the need saying I need interns and we are ready to facilitate. And because of COVID there will be a delay and if there's any interest with respect to particular course faculty saying I'm interested in recruiting intern online so we are going to come back to you. And we're trying to help hostel support to the learners and we're trying to give some kind of stipend so that there is a financial support for the learner to meet with the faculty and trying to get support to stay there. So, and most of the time, how students benefit through this internship is they work with the faculty in their path, and they actually, you know, spend a lot of time in the lab, I would say of the faculty, and you will also get a lot of friends in the system you learn a lot of, I would say a lot of new things that are happening in the lab, there's a lot of fear learning that can happen, and it's a very unique system, I would say opportunity for learners will be part of the system for them. And this is an example of a certificate of internship. And this is something which I was mentioning to you earlier, I was talking to you about the, I would say, NPTEL industry associate program, this is, I would say, the slide on NPTEL industry associate program, what we are doing. So, we have more 49 plus, I would say industry partners. Currently, we are offering various services to them. So one of them is, you know, co-offering courses, we work with companies and explore experts in their companies, if they have any expert to offer courses with our IT faculty. So we offer, we co-offer courses with the faculty from various ITs, along with the industry experts. And one or two such courses, I'll give you examples. One is the blockchain course with IBM, and there's a course on cloud with Google. So, and in addition to co-offering courses, if companies don't have so much time and I would say resources to spend for a full-fledged course, they actually take live sessions from them on various topics of interest to learners or connected with various courses and offer them life. And many students actually benefit from these live sessions. They've completed 150 plus live sessions on various topics, various careers related, and various general topics that are of interest to learners. And we've seen that participation from industry has been very, very good. Even participation from learners has been very good. And another area which I would say I would like to highlight what NPTEL is trying to do is through CSR partners, we're trying to help students to get exam-free waiver. We have more than 1 lakh 12,000 students who have been benefited from exam-free waiver through CSR support. So many of you who write NPTEL exams have to spend 1,000 rupees and for students who are from rural and semi-urban locations, but then if the 1,000 rupees is costly for them because they may not have enough budget being students to pay for their fees because of various reasons, financial, social, economical reasons. So we actually try to support them. But this is done through a recommendation from the college. The college should recommend this to students who need the support and NPTEL based on the availability of CSR funds, we actually give them support. And we've been getting very good response from CSR partners till date and I'm very happy and thankful to them with respect to their support. And other important thing that makes NPTEL very, very unique is a lot of companies are seeing NPTEL courses as part of their upskilling and re-skilling, I would say process. So where they actually tell their employees to register for NPTEL courses to upskill themselves or re-skill themselves. And that is where we actually partner with companies as part of our NIA initiative and we mutually benefit. And we are also trying to reach out to companies to recruit NPTEL topers and we've seen some interesting results. So a lot of companies say we're already going to colleges, we will definitely give preference to students who have done NPTEL courses when we go for recruitment. Similarly, when we do off campus recruitment, we'll definitely see how NPTEL certified candidates are performing. And we've seen one experience which I would like to share. We've done some recruitment activity with Infosys and we're happy to mention that 57 students recently have got jobs for a very good profile in software with Infosys with a salary package of 5 lakh per annum. And this is not an easy thing because Infosys was getting a shortlisted pool of NPTEL topers and finally they were conducting assessment and interviews before they finalize and shortlist. So NPTEL will give you that unique advantage with respect to showcasing yourself on a different platform because you've done NPTEL exams. It's not just that NPTEL will give you opportunities but wherever you go, you will have impact with respect to your employment, with respect to your interview if you have done an NPTEL course. So don't worry, okay, I'm doing an NPTEL course, what will I get next? So don't worry about that at all. I'll share more data about how NPTEL courses have helped the students with respect to employability and recruitment so that you get more confidence about NPTEL courses. And other important thing, we are also trying to get internships if there are any internship opportunities. In fact, Intern Shala is our partner so we have seen thousands of students getting benefited from internships. Those of you who are interested in internships, please subscribe to Intern Shala and look at what are the opportunities available in Intern Shala. And last important thing in this slide is soft skill training for NPTEL topers. I'll explain more about this as we go on further in the next few slides. Yeah, this is where it is. So we want all our NPTEL stars and NPTEL topers to get very good jobs with very good salaries. And we feel they are technically very, very good because they have been NPTEL topers or if they have been NPTEL stars that means they were even more sincere and technically very good. So and we feel they should get very good jobs and we want to help them in that process. And that's why we created this NPTEL soft skill training platform where we are trying to help exclusively stars and NPTEL topers with some support with respect to soft skill training. So what do we do as part of soft skill training? We do employability assessment which is very, very popular exam that is being conducted as part of recruitment process. So and we conduct that exam for practice and we give you feedback on areas for improvement. Similarly, we conduct a lot of live sessions on YouTube on various areas of soft skills. And we also conduct online interactive sessions and market reviews. I'll explain more about this in detail. But before we go there, I want to tell you this is meant for students who already tried for jobs but didn't get for various reasons because they need this soft skill training. But students who already got jobs, we want to discourage them to participate in this because we feel you're already good. So you may not need this. And students from premier institutions, we feel you're already good and you don't need this kind of a training. But please remember students who need support and who are NPTEL topers and NPTEL stars, you will definitely get the support from us. And please look out for emails and we'll tell you how to register. So we'll be sending regular emails to you and we'll be collecting database, resume database of yours. And we give you regular information about the live sessions that we are conducting and we do employability assessment and various things that I was mentioning to you. I'll explain more in detail as we go to the next slide. So these are various topics that we are conducting live sessions, so effective resume writing, how to be an effective communicator, what companies expect while hiring a candidate. And if you see the response for these sessions is very good from learners. And one of the highlights I would say is some of the experts who actually give these sessions are very senior professionals from the companies. So what companies expect while hiring a candidate is a session given by HR director of Khamjummi and the response was fantastic. And what more you need when HR head himself is giving you what companies are expecting while hiring a candidate. It's very, very relevant from a learning perspective and NPTEL brings you that specialized experts where you can actually learn and benefit from it. And this is another interesting, I would say, activity that we are doing is online interactive session where we are trying to minimize or remove your fear of interview or fear of meeting new people. So what we do, we get 10 students like you or 10 learners like you, along with a moderator who's an expert, and you get an opportunity to interact with the moderator and share your thoughts about, you know, various interview experiences. Or you discuss various HR related questions, or you discuss about, you know, how to handle the interview, how to be confident, or how to build an attractive resume. If you see more students actually struggle in building a very good resume because most of you don't spend time on resume and very important should remember spending enough time on resume is very, very important. And last and important thing, online mock interviews. And this is very, very unique experience because whenever you do an actual interview, you'll understand, you know, you go through a fear, you go through, you know, what interview is expecting, you don't know what is expected in an interview if you're going for the first time. Or you also have fear of attending an interview. So this mock interview will give you a very good real time experience of an interview. And we do this for free of cost. In fact, we conduct this over Google Hangout and we have an expert asking you questions based on your resume, and, you know, giving you personalized feedback so that you actually improve yourself for the actual interview. And we have got very good response from learners saying this mock interview has given them a lot of confidence while attending interviews with the actual interviewer of the employer. And these are the summary of the details of, you know, soft skill training that we have done in the last nine months. We have done around 10,000 plus interactive sessions for 1400 plus students HR mock interviews for 700 plus. And you should also remember the numbers are in decreasing order because we give support to people who participate so if you have to do online interactive session, you have to complete If you have to do get mock interview, you have to complete online and practice session. So we feel that your participation is critical and we want to track your progress in terms of learning when you are actually attending soft skill training and we feel your seriousness and your interest is very important. And that is the reason we have actually ordered, I would say, we are following this order so that, you know, you get a complete experience when you actually complete this process of soft skill training. It looks simple, but it can have very good impact because you go through a process of a real time job where you write an exam, then you have a group discussion, then you have an interview. So we are doing something similar and we also feel since you are technically very good, which is actually demonstrated through maybe becoming an NPTEL star or becoming a top up, we feel you are very, very important for us and we feel you deserve something like this free of cost. And we also expect that all our stars and NPTEL topers get very good jobs with very good salaries and that's the reason we want to support them. And these are some of the reasons why learners are attending soft skills training from us to get very good job in, you know, good company, you can see the response from learners. So this is, you know, it's not surprising in terms of information because everybody wants to get a good job in a good company and NPTEL is there to support you. And I want to share with you something more interesting of why you should do NPTEL courses and, you know, those of you who are listening this session till now, you will have doubt, okay, I'm doing these courses, what is the benefit. So that's a common question everybody will have. But to answer that, you know, we have done a survey with our local chapter members and to ask them with respect to impact of NPTEL courses on employability of their students. So you can see 83% of them say that there is a positive impact of taking NPTEL courses on employability. So we further did some more research and tried to get some more information from these responses, I would say colleges which are giving responses. So and we identified this data so you can see 94% of them say, you know, students or NPTEL learners are more confident to attend technical interviews or technical assessments. This is not a surprise to me because I myself, I'm IIT Madras alumnus. So if you are, you know, for example, if you're a top or in a course, or if you are done, if you have done NPTEL course very well, and you have written in person exam, and you get a certain level of confidence in that subject. And actually, when you go to attend an interview, you do well, or when you attend a technical, you know, exam, you do well. And this is going to be very natural. So if you do well in these, I would say NPTEL courses, you will naturally do well in your, I would say, interviews or in your campus placement. So please remember NPTEL courses are going to help you build your skills and knowledge so that you are ready for your career. So this is one more information that we try to collect how NPTEL, you know, top or sub for performing in campus placements and off campus placements. So you can see this is also interesting where no, I would say 43% are performing very good 44.9% good. So you can see almost 85% of them say they're doing very well, which is very, very important from a learner perspective for you to understand. So if you are a top or you will actually do well in campus placements and off campus placements. And why we are saying this is NPTEL exams are going to be rigorous. And since they're organized by ID, you will gain certain level of confidence, but completely based on your expertise. So the moment you are well prepared, you will actually do well in the exam, then you will get a certificate, you will actually do well in your interview because you build a confidence on yourself. And NPTEL can help you in the confidence building process, saying you are very good in this area and this is a certificate, and you'll actually do well when you actually go for placements through campus or off campus. And all of you should remember, NPTEL platform is there to enable you to build your skill and knowledge. And I'm sure opportunities are out there for, you know, learners and qualified, I would say candidates for very good jobs. So they're all available there. It's just that why they should give you and why they should select you for a particular job. And that's where you need to differentiate yourself. And that's where NPTEL is there for you to tell you, you know, this is how I'm unique. And this is how I'm going to be special for a company. And this is why companies should recruit me. And that's where you can use NPTEL courses, select courses of your interest, and, you know, gain expertise, gain skills and knowledge. And I'm sure you are in the world out there to get a very good job. Wish you all the best. And I would say, I think I'm kind of done with my session. I think we have some Q&A. There is a form displayed in the description. I would suggest all of you to post your queries in the Google form there, and I'll be happy to take queries. Just give me a minute. I'll check with my team and come back to you on the status of the form. Then I'll be happy to share that feedback or response of yours through the session. Thank you all. Wish you all the best. Give me a few minutes. I'll check with my team and come back. I would like to mention to all of you that Google form is shared in the description of the YouTube link that you're watching. I suggest all of you to go and fill the form and take I think less than a minute to fill the form. Please fill the form. I'll be happy to share the responses with all of you as we go further. And I also suggest you to start looking at the list of courses available in Swine platform, swine.gov.in, slash NPTEL, and look at courses that are of relevance to you and your area of interest and subscribe for them. Now that you are here, I want you to post your responses through the Google form and I would be happy to see the responses. And as I see responses, I'll share more with you about the updates on the responses. And seeing the response in the response sheet, almost good number of students are giving their feedback and response. I suggest all of you to post your response here so that we will be able to understand what you're thinking and how this can help you better. And if there are any specific queries, I'm very happy to answer. So one of the learners is asking, can you please guide on how to enroll for the soft skills training and be able to see that. So I want to mention to you, those of you who want to enroll for soft skill training, you have to become NPTEL toppers or you know you have to become NPTEL stars. So if you are, you know, either one, you can reach out to us or we will reach out to you on a regular basis for registering and you can actually enroll for soft skill training. So a lot of you are very clear about how it has, you know, how it can impact you, how NPTEL can help you. So I believe a lot of you got a lot of insights. If there's any specific queries, I want you to post as part of the feedback, then I'll be happy to answer. And otherwise, we had a wonderful session and I'm sure all of you had a lot of, I would say, points that you're trying to understand through this presentation. I could understand from your feedback and I'm very happy that you have actively participated today and you have given your time and I would like to wish you all the best with respect to your career. And I would like to say all of you can actually take advantage of NPTEL, start registering for NPTEL courses and eventually have a great impact on your career and on your job. Wish you all the best with this. I would like to thank all of you for being part of today's session. Thanks a lot.