Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and Kanpur are offering free online courses pertaining to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science. Interested students can avail these courses on the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) online learning platform in India. Other IITs and IISc in the country are introducing other learning programmes that are scheduled to begin in January 2021. IIT Madras is offering two online courses pertaining to AI whereas IIT Kanpur is offering two data science courses on the online learning portal. The introduction of these courses is an initiative under the SWAYAM programme started by the Indian Government to provide e-learning resources to students free of cost.
The two AI courses introduced by IIT madras shall be conducted by Prof. Deepak Khemani, a member of the department of science and engineering. Participants can avail the course free of cost. However, to appear for the exam and obtain the e-certificate associated with IIT Madras and NPTEL, participants are required to pay a fee of Rs. 1000. Even though there is no restriction on the qualification of candidates, these programmes are recommended for undergraduate and postgraduate students in the field of computer science. Furthermore, these courses are beneficial for BE, ME, MS, MSc, and Ph.D. students. Participants are also required to have knowledge of formal languages, logic, programming, etc.
The online courses offered by IIT madras shall cover topics like introduction, propositional logic, syntax, and semantics, Constraint Satisfaction Problems (CSPs), etc in the course. These 12-week courses shall be conducted from January 18 to April 9, 2021. Participants can apply for this course on the official website of the conducting body.
IIT Kanpur is going to introduce two online courses related to data science on the NPTEL portal. The two courses are pertaining to essentials of Data Science with the R software. The first course shall deal with probability and statistical inference while the second course shall explain sampling theory and linear aggression analysis. These courses shall last for 12 weeks and beginning from January 18, 2021 and lasting up to April 9, 2021. They will be conducted by Dr. Shalabh who will impart knowledge in areas such as linear models, regression analysis and ecometrics. Participants will have to take the examination on April 25, 2021 along with paying a fee of Rs. 1000.
IIT Kanpur and Madras jointly decided to introduce these online courses free of cost to combat issues created by the COVID19 Pandemic. Due to the lockdown, students living in remote areas are unable to access educational resources. Hence, under the SWAYAM initiative of the government, these online courses are being conducted to offer reliable e-learning resources to all the aspiring students.
