Hyderabad, Dec 14 (IANS): Tech giant IBM and the Telangana government on Monday announced a collaboration to provide curated online courses for the states students that will enhance their technical and professional skills.

IBM will work with the Telangana Academy for Skill and Knowledge (TASK) to offer ‘Open P-TECH', a free digital education platform focused on emerging technologies and professional development skills, for 30,000 students over a period of one year across engineering, degree and polytechnic courses.

They will also train college teachers in using the platform, so that they can guide their students and mentor students to learn the skills that will enhance their readiness for their future careers and the workplace.

"Our collaboration with the Telangana government is a significant milestone, complementing the state's education curriculum with professional, new-age, and white-collar skill sets for students," Sandip Patel, Managing Director, IBM India/South Asia said in a statement.

Under this partnership, IBM will offer its entire catalogue of Open P-TECH courses in emerging technologies like cyber security, blockchain, AI and machine learning, cloud, Internet of Things (IoT), along with professional skills, like Design Thinking to learners between 18 to 22 years for free.

"In addition to these courses, I would also encourage the students to make use of the professional skills courses and mould themselves into well-rounded assets suitable for the global marketplace," said Shrikant Sinha, the CEO of TASK.

"With Open P-TECH students learn to leverage their digital, emerging technology and professional skills to improve their employability," Patel noted.