New Delhi, Sep 24 (IANS): Aimed to bring in more women into the Indian IT industry, Microsoft India Wednesday launched an initiative ‘Women in Tech’ under which it will train one million girls and women in the next 12 months, the company said here.

“Today, the IT industry in India has about one million women. Our Women in Tech initiative aims to double that number in the next few years. In the first year, our partners and we will train and mentor the next one million women and help them join, grow and succeed in the IT industry,” Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman, Microsoft India said in a statement.

“We are excited by the government of India’s Digital India vision. At Microsoft, we have been running various IT skill development and education programs for youth for over 20 years. With this new initiative, we want to focus on helping women who aspire to be IT professionals,” he added.

Women in Tech is designed to help aspiring IT professionals from the time they are in high school until they take up a IT job or start their own IT company.

“Our Women in Tech initiative is aimed at enabling India’s young girls and women find suitable careers in IT and accelerate their growth. Through the course of the next year, we will provide one million women access to awareness sessions, training and certification programs, and mentoring sessions,” said Joseph Landes, chief evangelist, Microsoft India.

“In addition, through Microsoft Ventures we will also mentor 30 women-led start-up companies and support them in building connections with the broader start-up community in India,” he added.

In addition to the training and mentoring delivered by Microsoft, the program will look towards building local communities for girls and women to meet, network, and learn from each other by sharing ideas and learning across the board, adding a dimension of community learning and professional development.