Postman, the leading API platform, today announced its plans to open an API Lab at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani) to promote API literacy amongst students and aspiring developers as APIs become more critical in today’s digital world. Set to open in December 2022, the API Lab at BITS Pilani will cultivate interest in APIs and provide a space for students to build new skills through ideating, innovating, and tinkering with new projects.
Most in-demand engineering roles increasingly use and consume APIs as part of their day-to-day work, but most developers only learn about APIs once they start their career. As part of Postman’s Student Program initiative, which is designed to promote API literacy amongst students and educators, the new API Lab at BITS Pilani will provide a space for students to explore this emerging technology. Through this, students can build new skills and capabilities that give them a competitive boost before they even graduate and seek full-time employment.
Once open later this year, the API Lab at BITS Pilani will provide a variety of resources to promote projects focused on building and consuming public APIs, including state-of-the-art computers, high-end servers, HPC clusters, GPU workstations, printers, and more. Postman’s ongoing partnership with BITS Pilani also includes a classroom program designed to train and support educators incorporating APIs into their curriculum. Already in its second cohort, thousands of students have participated and gained the Postman Student Expert badge as a reflection of their skills.
“Students with a strong base of API literacy can do great things,” said Abhinav Asthana, Postman Co-founder and CEO and recipient of the 2021 BITS Pilani Distinguished Alumnus Award. “Our vision is to power an API-first world, and this partnership with BITS Pilani is a major milestone on this journey. By empowering educators to teach API skills in schools and colleges around the world, we are giving students the tools they need to succeed and stand out in a competitive hiring market, so they can continue bringing the API-first world to life.”
“The new API Lab exemplifies tremendous generosity on behalf of Postman’s co-founders and BITS alumni, Abhinav Asthana and Abhijit Kane; the BITS Pilani giving program has never seen such a significant contribution from young alumni,” said Professor Souvik Bhattacharyya, Vice-Chancellor of BITS Pilani. “The API Lab and the Postman Classroom Program will prove to be a constant source of inspiration for students, and become a catalyst for more startups to rise from across all BITS Pilani.”
