Underlining its vision to create a data-literate world,Qlik has expanded the Qlik Academic Program to over 400 universities and educational institutions across India. Qlik recorded a 400% uptick in registrations from India for the first 9 months of 2020, compared with the overall 12 months of 2019. The increase in the number of registrations can be attributed to the growing awareness of data literacy across education institutions, which are adding marketable data skills to their curricula to strengthen their academic offerings.

In an age where data is the new water, the Qlik Academic Program provides university lecturers free and ready-to-teach resources, which include instructor-led content, in-class activities, sample data sets and student assignments, all housed in its online self-paced course library, the Qlik Continuous Classroom. Qlik Continuous Classroom includes hands-on exercises, quick references guide, assessments, the ability to chat with live instructors, and earn qualifications in the form of certificates and digital badges. To date, within the APAC region, 90% of all the Qlik Sense qualifications and 98% of all Data Analytics Certifications have been earned by Indian students and professors.

Speaking on the announcement, Pankaj Muthe, Program Manager, Academic Program, APAC, Qlik said, “COVID-19 has created massive transitions in the current work ecosystem, pushing organizations to reshape their existing business models. To excel in this new data-driven world order, data literacy and analytics have emerged as sought-after skills. The Qlik Academic Program caters precisely to this growing need for data expertise by equipping new-age learners with the right set of data skills required in tomorrow’s workplace. The program equally focuses on empowering educators who can help the next generation of data experts excel in this space.”

The Qlik Academic Program is open to any accredited university-level institution worldwide, including for-profit and non-profit colleges. Some of the prominent universities and institutions that have partnered with Qlik include IIM-Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Calcutta, IIT-Madras, Bombay, Roorkee and Kharagpur. Qlik continues to engage with education partners across Asia Pacific and India as the program grows. For example, 3,152 students and 170 professors from Dr APJ Kalam Technical University, India joined the program this year. Additionally, Qlik announced its tie-up with the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), India’s apex body of IT-BPM companies. The association aims to boost NASSCOM’s ambitious project, ‘Future Skills,’ with the help of Qlik's analytics platform, and provide training to the country’s workforce in emerging technologies.

Earlier this month, Qlik also launched their Professor Ambassador Program. The initiative aims to shine a spotlight on professor members who have made Qlik a central part of their classroom experience for the next generation of analytics leaders. Professors currently enrolled in the Qlik Academic Program can self-nominate to be a champion in preparing students for the data-driven workplace. Applications are open now to November 30, 2020. Selected ambassadors will be announced in early 2021.