A quick chat with Worldskills Competition winner Aditya Pratap Singh

Organised every two years, Worldskills competition is the biggest vocation and skills based event in the world. More than 50 countries from around the world compete in this mega competition. The 44^th instalment of the competition recently concluded in Abu Dhabi. Team India performed excellently at the competition winning one silver, one bronze and nine medallion of excellence in various skills. We had the opportunity to have a conversation with medallion of excellence winner Aditya Pratap Singh who competed in the skill of Automobile Technology this year. Below are some excerpts from the conversation:

Q: What is Worldskills Competition, why is so great about it?
A: As you know, Worldskills Competition is one of the biggest skills competitions in the world; it is referred as the ‘Olympics of Skills’. Countries from around the world compete in 56 skills in various domains such as Information Technology, Construction and Building Technology, Transportation, Manufacturing and Engineering, Creative Arts and Fashion and Social and Personal Services. I participated in the Automobile Technology skill.

Q: What is the minimum qualification for participating in the WSC?
A: There is as such no minimum qualification required to participate in the WSC, the participant should just be under 21 years of age and should have a good hold on his skill.

Q: How and for how long had you been preparing for WSC?
A: I had been training for the past two years, eight hours a day. Being a trainee at Tata Motors, most of my training was done there, while the rest of it was organised by NSDC at various other automobile companies like Suzuki, Mahindra and Hyundai. I was also trained at Nissan in Dubai for two weeks.

Q: Tell me something about Automobile Technology as a skill in WSC.
A: Automobile technology as a skill mainly covers the mechanical and electrical aspects of the subject. To qualify for the competition we had to work on eight different modules comprising various spheres of the automobile technology including measurements, electrical, electronic and mechanical diagnosis, etc.

Q: Where does India stand against other countries in the WSC?
A: We are just above average. We are not as good as countries such as Japan, Korea and China.

Q: What do you think is the reason behind India’s average performance at WSC?
A: I cannot say about any other skill, but the case with Automobile technology is that the tools and equipments required for training are quite expensive which people are not able to afford, so I was also not able to practice on those equipments. The other thing is the simulators used at WSC to test the participants are also not available in our country as there is no demand for them here. For example there were four simulators which besides Canada are not available anywhere else in the world, I saw them for the first time at the competition. Actually five out of eight modules which I had to work on at WSC were totally new for me.

Q: What part did Tata Motors played in your success at WSC?
A: Everything happened because of Tata Motors, all the technical knowledge I have, everything I have learnt so far, is just because of Tata motors. The company hired four instructors just for me, they were training me for the past two years.

Q: How do you see the future of Automobile?
A: As you can see we are moving closer and closer towards electric mobility and considering the Indian automotive market I see more of a Hybrid future rather than a pure electric.