A $2.3 million grant from U.K.-based charity Wellcome is funding a data skilling program run by data.org, a global organisation backed by the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth. The program will work with three universities, data.org announced — Ashoka University, the Indraprastha Institute for Information Technology, and BITS Pilani — to launch the India Data Capacity Accelerator, which envisions one million Indians trained in using data to solve climate and health-related challenges.
“There is potential for 3.5 million data professionals across the world,” Danil Mikhailov, Executive Director of data.org, said at an event at the University of Chicago Center in Delhi to mark the launch of the accelerator. “We want India to be a big part of that.” The Chennai-based South Asia arm of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) will also work on the accelerator.
