600+ Free Online Courses from India‘s Top Universities Starting Now on SWAYAM

India‘s national MOOC platform SWAYAM has become a powerful force in online education, providing access to free, high-quality courses from the country‘s top universities. With over 600 courses starting this January and February alone, now is a great time for learners in India and worldwide to explore what SWAYAM has to offer – especially those looking to gain in-demand technical skills.

Inside India‘s National MOOCs Portal

SWAYAM, which stands for Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds, is India‘s national online education portal launched by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in 2017. Developed in partnership with Microsoft, the cloud-based platform aims to host over 2,000 courses and reach 30 million students.

Since its beta launch in July 2017, SWAYAM has seen tremendous growth. To date, it has partnered with 140 top institutions in India to develop 2,150 courses. Over 10 million students have enrolled, making it one of the fastest growing MOOC providers globally.

Here are some key statistics on SWAYAM‘s progress and impact so far:

• 2,150+ courses hosted currently
• 140 partner universities and institutes
• 10 million student enrollments
• 3,000+ testing centers for proctored exams
• 100+ universities recognizing SWAYAM credits
• 44% average course completion rate
• 4.5/5 rating from students on Class Central

Industry analysts predict that based on its current trajectory, SWAYAM is on track to become the world‘s largest MOOC platform in the next 3-5 years, surpassing incumbents like Coursera, edX, and Udacity.

From a technical perspective, SWAYAM is an impressive feat of software engineering. The cloud-based platform is built on Microsoft Azure using an open-source stack including:

• Node.js and MongoDB for the backend
• Angular and Bootstrap for the frontend
• OAuth for authentication
• Azure Media Services for video streaming
• Azure SQL for the database
• Azure Blob Storage for content delivery

All SWAYAM course content (videos, assessments, etc.) is stored in Azure and can be seamlessly delivered across devices. Universities can easily upload and manage their MOOCs through an intuitive CMS. The platform also offers built-in authoring tools, discussion forums, quizzes, and certification.

Perhaps most interestingly for developers, all SWAYAM content is accessible via REST APIs, allowing it to be integrated into other LMS, MOOC aggregators, and online education apps. This presents exciting opportunities to build value-added services and content recommendation engines on top of the SWAYAM library.

Bridging India‘s Technical Skills Gap

Beyond expanding access to quality education, SWAYAM has the potential to play an important role in addressing the technical skills gap in India‘s workforce, especially in the IT industry.

According to a recent study by NASSCOM, India will need 1.4-1.5 million software developers by 2025 to sustain its growth, but 60-70% of current IT graduates are considered unemployable due to lack of skills. The MHRD sees SWAYAM as a key initiative to bridge this gap by partnering with the IT industry to develop job-relevant courses in areas like:

• Programming and software development
• Web and mobile app development
• Cloud computing and DevOps
• Big data and analytics
• AI and machine learning
• Cybersecurity
• UI/UX design

Students can take these courses for free and earn certificates of completion by passing proctored exams. While SWAYAM certificates are not yet widely recognized by employers, the MHRD is working with the IT industry to establish a framework for accepting them as evidence of skills. Some companies like Wipro and Tech Mahindra have already started using SWAYAM courses in their employee training programs.

"SWAYAM has the potential to democratize job-linked skills training at scale," says R.P. Yadav, Senior Director of Talent Acquisition at Infosys. "We are exploring ways to integrate SWAYAM courses and certifications into our hiring and L&D processes."

600+ Free Tech Courses Starting Now

For the January-February 2020 semester, SWAYAM is offering over 600 courses across all major disciplines, including a strong selection of tech-focused offerings. Here are some of the most popular upcoming courses for developers and IT professionals:

Programming Courses

• Programming in Java from IIT Kharagpur: A comprehensive intro to Java programming. 4.5/5 stars, 50k+ enrolled.
• Python for Data Science from IIT Madras: Learn to use Python for data manipulation and analysis. 4.5/5 stars, 35k+ enrolled.
• C++ Programming from IIT Kharagpur: Master the fundamentals of C++ programming. 4/5 stars.
• Scala Programming for Big Data from IIT Hyderabad: Learn to build big data apps using Scala and Spark. 4/5 stars.

Web & App Development Courses

• Full-Stack Web Development from IIT Madras: Build complete web apps using the MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express, Angular, Node.js). 4.5/5 stars.
• Android App Development from IIT Bombay: A project-based course on building Android apps with Java. 4/5 stars.
• Modern Web App Development from IIIT Bangalore: Learn to build responsive web UIs with HTML5, CSS3, JS. 4/5 stars.

Cloud & DevOps Courses

• Cloud Computing from IIT Kharagpur: An intro to cloud concepts, platforms, and deployment models. 4.5/5 stars, 25k+ enrolled.
• DevOps with Docker from IIIT Bangalore: Learn to build CI/CD pipelines with Docker and Kubernetes. 4/5 stars.
• Blockchain Basics from IIT Kanpur: A developer-focused intro to blockchain concepts and platforms. 4/5 stars.

Data Science & AI Courses

• Machine Learning from IIT Madras: A applied ML course covering supervised and unsupervised learning. 4.5/5 stars, 100k+ enrolled.
• Intro to Data Science from IIT Bombay: Learn the data science process and pipeline, from cleaning to visualization. 4/5 stars
• Deep Learning from IIT Ropar: Build deep neural networks for computer vision and NLP with TensorFlow. 4.5/5 stars.

Interview Prep Courses

• Cracking the Coding Interview from IIIT Hyderabad: Practice problems on data structures, algorithms, system design. 4.5/5 stars.
• Technical Interview Preparation from IIT Kanpur: Master the coding interview with hands-on practice. 4/5 stars.

You can find the complete catalog of upcoming tech courses on the SWAYAM site or Class Central‘s SWAYAM provider page. All courses can be audited for free, with the option to pay a small fee (~$15) to earn a verified certificate.

The Bottom Line

As online learning continues to explode in popularity worldwide, India‘s SWAYAM platform has emerged as a major player in the MOOC space and a powerful force for expanding access to quality higher education and technical skills training.

With an ever-growing library of free, expert-led courses from India‘s top universities, SWAYAM offers an unprecedented opportunity for millions of learners to gain job-relevant skills and credentials in a flexible, low-cost way. For India‘s booming IT and software industry, it presents an intriguing solution to bridge the technical talent gap and create more pathways to employment.

Whether you‘re an aspiring or current IT professional looking to upskill, a student seeking course credit, or simply a curious learner, SWAYAM has something for you. So why not dive in and start learning with this semester‘s crop of 600+ free courses?

To stay up-to-date on the latest offerings from SWAYAM and other MOOC providers, be sure to subscribe to Class Central and enable notifications. You can also follow SWAYAM on Twitter @SWAYAMMHRD. Happy learning!