Udemy, the Uber equivalent in online learning, plans to expand its presence in India by tapping in to the government sector -- its platform is already in use by individual companies.

It has started talks with both the Centre and various State governments for using its platform to train their staff, said Irwin Anand, Managing Director, Udemy India. "With over 20 million employees, the Government is one of the biggest sectors to be tapped. Udemy works with the Governments of Japan and Singapore," he told BusinessLine .

 

Udemy provides a platform for experts from anywhere in the world to develop courses on thousands of topics and share their knowledge. Students from across the world can access these courses and learn in-demand skills from public speaking to mindfulness, to the latest programming languages and marketing strategies.

“We help individuals and employees in companies and governments gain the required skills they need to compete in today’s global economy. The platform was built on the premise that not all teachers are found in traditional classrooms,” he said.

The US-based company, is a marketplace that serves the needs of individuals who are looking to upskill, Udemy for Business is designed for companies such as Booking.com, Publicis Sapient, Pinterest and Adidas, which are looking to invest in their workforces.

This subscription-based product offers over 3,000 of the highest-rated technical and business courses, and learning analytics and an easy-to-use platform to create and distribute content to their own teams, he said. In India, its clients include Wipro, Tech Mahindra and Tetrasoft, he added.

Anand said over 40 million students from over 190 countries learn on Udemy, and there are more than 245 million course enrollments. “In India, we have millions of students as customers and thousands of instructors teaching students from around the world,” he said, without giving absolute numbers.

Skilling individuals and employees

Over 50,000 instructors teach 1,30,000 courses in more than 60 different languages on Udemy.  Over 4,000 companies and 80 per cent of Fortune 100 companies use Udemy for employee upskilling. Courses can be viewed on the web, on a mobile device, Apple TV, and through Chromecast. Students can also download and view the courses offline, and change video quality for low-bandwidth environments, he said.

An individual can learn a course, which could cost ranging from Rs 360 to Rs 2,000 on various categories, including technology skills, music, dance and photography. The course will be available for life time for the user, he said.

Companies pay a monthly fee based on per employee for the course and duration. The course could be for freshers or for specific technology skills. Technology is the biggest category using Udemy platform, he said.

For Udemy, after the US, India is the second largest market catering to the requirement of professionals wanting to learn new skills or upgrade their skills.

Every year, nearly 7 million graduates pass out of colleges, but not many are employable. The traditional way of education in India is not sufficient for people to be productive at work. Udemy with its practice-oriented courses help people to learn the right skills and get into the job market, he said.

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