over 75000 it students from over 300 institutes in india including iit delhi indian institute of sciences bangalore regional engineering college durgapur will get involved in one of the most extensive itskills development training programmetermed as in demand skills for an on demand world the open it skills for a more competitive workforce training programme is ibms academic initiative to help indian universities prepare the students in keeping the standard of the market demandspeaking to the education times managing director of ibm global services india pvt ltd shanker annaswamy said we have the fund a global outlook being a leading player ibm has a lot to give we are not going to give something entirely different but add quality to what the students are already learningspeaking about the objectives of the initiative annaswamy said there are specific demand for specific skillsets if the it graduates add these skillsets they will be more attractive for the employers and even for further studies strictly speaking ibm will work with select universities and institutes that support open standards to achieve three key aims training of it workforce to fill the new kinds of jobs that are emerging across the industry providing the right skills to the next generation of it workers and ensuring that universities have the most current and relevant curricula that map to the kinds of jobs that are expected so that universities can be attractive for enrolment funding and growthaccording to a nasscom estimate india will have to educate at least 2 million additional knowledge workers over the next eight years if indias it software and services sector is to achieve an annual revenue of 70 bn to 80 bn in 2008the initiative will make available more than 40 ibm software technologies at no charge for integration into college curricula offer hardware products at special rates including the latest power servers and blade servers featuring the latest power architecture take advantage of ibms workforce development solutions and advanced career education