Adobe India and NASSCOM FutureSkills have jointly announced the launch of the UX foundation program recognized by Sector Skills Council, NASSCOM. The program is available on NASSCOM’s FutureSkills platform at no cost to all its 300,000 subscribers. In its pilot phase, it is aimed at skilling and reskilling students and professionals by 2021 to meet the industry demand for one of the fastest growing creative disciplines - User Experience Design. Cognizant is the industry partner in this initiative to mandate skilling of new / existing workforce.

The program aims to bridge the gap between industry and academia. Due to lack of supply of skilled workforce, companies may hire under-qualified workers to conduct their UX business. Other times, UX design jobs take a long time to fill, leading to lost productivity. The expanding digital landscape, especially in today’s environment calls for a compelling need for products and services fueling the demand for skilled UX designers for future of jobs. Adobe XD is embedded into the curriculum and this learner journey on UX will serve as a critical resource to help close the skill gap for one of the fastest growing creative disciplines – UX design.

The content has been designed by Adobe to enable students to develop skills and for the industry workforce to upskill & re-skill the increasing the talent pool in India.

Mala Sharma, VP & GM, Creative Cloud Product Marketing & Community and Digital Media Education at Adobe said, “Adobe is the global leader in creativity - a critical skill for the future workforce. I believe that students from all fields must make creativity and creative story telling a critical skill as part of their Digital Literacy. Given India’s significant skills potential – and especially in digital skills, I am excited for today’s launch of UX curriculum on the NASSCOM Future Skills platform as a great example of our commitment to helping India leverage this opportunity. I can’t wait to see students get certified and go on to having impact in their careers and businesses meet their critical talent needs as a result.”

Expressing his thoughts on the partnership, Amit Aggarwal, CEO IT-ITES Sector Skill Council NASSCOM  & Co-Architect, NASSCOM FutureSkills  said  “We envision to make India a global hub for digital talent and our partnership with Adobe is a significant step in that direction. User experience designers are among the most in-demand job roles today. The fact that we spend hours every day on our mobile device says a lot about how prominent the role of a UX designer is going to become.  It is imperative for students and professionals keen to have a career in Experience Design to build their foundation on this most sought after skill."

Prakash Balasubramanian, Global Delivery Head ― Interactive, Cognizant, said, “Differentiating experiences are a key driver of competitive advantage and economic value in this age of disruptive technological change and constantly evolving expectations. Designing unique experiences has therefore become a core skill to realize the full potential of digital technologies, a skill that also sets students and professionals apart in the marketplace. This commendable initiative by NASSCOM and Adobe will expand and deepen India’s talent pool in experience transformation. Cognizant is pleased to be associated with the initiative and bring its global exposure and expertise in experience design to help scale and broaden the program.”

Adobe & NASSCOM FutureSkills plan to expand the scope to add more creative programs focused on skill development in partnership with Industry and academia in the future.