A journey that began as a fascination with technology and transformed into a passion for artificial intelligence. The drive to stand on her own feet & empower herself to solve real world challenges

While Shamshad Banu was living in a shady slum of Mumbai, her determination to win over her situations never failed in her heart. Her low-income transitory phase towards giving a life of dignity to her children came true as she discovered the IBM world training that had the right resources, know-how and power to reach her dream battling the worst of urban poverty and inequality.

Almost two decades of being an ITI instructor had taught Shah Shamshad Mehboob, the importance of timely communication. She has been working as an ITI trade instructor in Ahmed Abdullah Garib Private ITI, Mumbai, Maharashtra.As a technology enthusiast she never let go of her opportunities to discover new trends andis always eager to learn new technology. This enthusiasm led her to attend the two days training on Basic Artificial Intelligence by IBM-DGT.

Directorate General of Training (DGT) had announced the launch of SkillsBuild platform in collaboration with IBM last year. In turn, IBM has taken support of various NGOs to deploy the facility to enhance technology skills and Shamshad Banu was a part of online skill building AI course to receive this IBM-DGT training. The training was held at NSTI, Mumbai. This is where she discovered the foundational knowledge of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its various applications.

IBM has brought in 21st century skills via significant collaborations, she had heard. One such partnership with IBM enables the SkillsBuild platform for the learners at no cost. This learning platform empowers users with latest knowledge and easy implementation of the learning too.  The usage of resources and information essential to the online learner is made easily available at the platform. Shamshad Banu was overwhelmed butoverjoyed about the entire training episode.

Chat Bot Contest Winner

Once her training was over, she was eager to continue her learning through online courses on AI, Machine Learning, IOT, Big Data and Data Science offered through SkillsBuild platform by IBM.  With so much training, Shamshad Banu began feeling more confident with her technical skills. Finally, she decided to test whatever she had learnt. The opportunity to test her newly acquired skills came in the shape of Chatbot Contest. She wanted to bring a change in the place of work that was providing her bread and butter for two decades. She decided to enrolin the contest and participate. She broke out in absolute surprise when her chatbot made the top 5. It truly reminded her of how hard she had worked to reach where she was & motivated her to keep pursuing her hunger for learning.

Application of AI

Banu typically experienced unhappy living conditions where individuals are thrown open to having high concentration of social and economic deprivation. The environments include broken families, unemployment and economic, physical and social exclusion with limited access to formal job markets due to discrimination and stigmatization. However, enthused with her achievement, Shamshad was motivated to design chatbot for their own ITI website. She leveraged her learning from Workshop and SkillsBuild to create and deploy the ChatBot on Institute’s website.  which is now helping a lot of students for immediate resolution of their queries. Most of the student queries are resolved in no time with the help of this application at her IT Institute currently. She now encourages fellow teachers and students to explore SkillsBuild portal and upskill at no cost. She is grateful to having participated in the DGT-IBM programme which helped her in upgrading her technical skills. Her learning and implementation of the AI skills became a reality.Her attitude towards building a creative and communicative response to her dismal life that she experienced almost two decades ago on a daily basis gave way to developing AI for the benefit and making considerable contributions to her environment.

Value Provider

The facilitators and instructors as well as IBM mentors made it possible to roll out the training for Shamshad Banu and her fellow students. They not only supported but also helped her with her own value add of ChatBotto ITI.  It was a hand holding process throughout her learningand they even recommended courses and learning activities as per her choices. She has done many courses such as Introduction to AI, Data Science, Data Analytics, building a chat bot. Shamshad is ready to pursue more professional skills such as resume building and interview etiquettes to complement her knowledge-based skills.

Shamshad Banu is a constant source of inspiration to those around her now. 13 of her trainees and 9 of her colleagues have completed courses on SkillsBuild after discovering the potential of skills upgradation in the growth path of Shamshad Banu.“A really important thing with SkillsBuild platform is to build relationships with industry professionals. Without SkillBuilds by IBM, I would never have had a renewed sense of belief in myself. Providing value to my place of work is the key to my career success,” she said.

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Impact-Story is a series on development and CSR interventions leading to some impacts on the ground. If you have a project, innovation or intervention that has changed the lives of a few people or a community, please share a brief note at shilpi@csrbox.org. Our Team will get back to you after validating the information for a detailed coverage.