Crio.Do launches free programme for engineering students

The programme called 'Crio Launch' is a completely free and app-based solution that promises to offer real product development experience to students and empowers them to learn relevant technical skills.

"Crio Launch focuses on software engineering

foundations. Students learn foundational concepts by actually applying them in building real software products," Crio.Do co-founder Rathinamurthy R told PTI.

The participants are handpicked for the programme, which was launched last month, based on a multi-stage selection process and each stage evaluates a student's appetite to learn and grow, he added.

"The programme has been launched recently and has already garnered interest from over 500 campuses across the country, making it one of the largest experiential learning programmes for product development in India," Rathinamurthy said.

Earlier this year, the company raised USD 1 million (Rs 7.12 crore) in seed funding led by Bansal, Flipkart ex-CTO Ravi G, Flipkart ex-CPO Mekin Maheshwari and Udaan founders Amod Malviya, Sujeet Kumar and Vaibhav Gupta.

Founded in 2018, Crio.Do at present is working closely with student bodies on over 100 campuses across the country and running multiple community learning initiatives on its platform for students in those campuses.

Rathinamurthy said that every industry is getting disrupted by technology and software product developers are at the forefront of this change.

"Today's curriculum and learning methodologies are not tuned towards equipping students with the right skills and competencies to become successful product developers.

"We strongly believe that there is a need for an experiential learning platform, where developers get credible product development experience by actually building real software products. We are focussed on solving this problem in India," he added.

Citing the Annual Employability Survey 2019 by Aspiring Minds, Rathinamurthy said that over 15 lakh students graduate from Indian engineering colleges every year, but 80 per cent of them are not fit for any IT or other job whereas the IT sector faces a huge shortage of skilled techies.

The co-founder said that students graduating from 'Crio Launch' stand the chance of bagging full or part scholarships to 'Crio Launch Plus', which is Crio's flagship career-accelerator programme.

"Students who graduate from Launch Plus will be able to hit the floor running from day one in any high-paced, dynamic, product company. For tech companies, Crio Launch Plus graduates will be a unique pool of talented developers with the hunger to build technology and solve real customer problems," he added.

Rathinamurthy said both 'Crio Launch' and 'Crio Launch Plus' are extensive programmes dedicated to foster a student's product development skills in about eight-ten weeks, requiring 400-500 hours of commitment to meet the targets set in each of the programmes.

The 'Crio Launch Plus' is a paid programme, he added.