R-CAT: Global firms Oracle, Cisco involvement in Rajasthan govt's IT push

With inputs from global firms such as Oracle and Cisco, the Rajasthan government has set up the Rajiv Gandhi Centre of Advanced Technology (R-CAT), which is functioning as an IT finishing school, imparting training to youths and working professionals and developing soft skills to make them industry-ready.

R-CAT is managed under the aegis of the state government’s Department of Information Technology & Communication (DoIT&C).

“This would provide better employment opportunities to youths in the public and private sectors,” a senior state government official said.

“The state government wants to provide a cohesive environment for developing quality technical manpower for the industry and government through globally recognised training programmes, leading to a reduction of the gap between learning and application of technology,” he said.

According to the official, over 80 training programmes are being run in R-CAT. They include artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, cloud computing, blockchain, augmented reality/virtual reality, big data analysis, clinical data analysis, quantum computing, the Java programme, and data science.

The state government has provided advanced equipment, trainers, and infrastructure.

The duration of the training programmes is from one week to six months. Apart from Oracle and Cisco, international companies such as VMware, Red Hat, and SAS conduct them.

The institute will give world-level certification to the students. The state government is planning to start branches of R-CAT in other districts.

The state government is imparting free training to the students of the first batch. The objectives of R-CAT are to enhance the employability quotient of youths (undergraduates/graduates/postgraduates) in the state in information technology and allied disciplines, conduct research, support start-ups for industry updates, utilising established labs, etc, tying up with industry partners for insights, implementing certificate courses, and ensuring the quality of services (QoS) on all the deliverables by select training partners.