Why ABCsteps exists
AI engineering, taught honestly, without the four-year wait or the science-stream gate.
ABCsteps is a 20-lesson practical AI engineering curriculum at ₹4,999. It is not a degree, and it does not replace one. It is the engineering layer that B.Tech and M.Tech programs in AI / Data Science charge lakhs of rupees and four years for — and gate behind science-stream prerequisites that lock out students who could otherwise become excellent AI engineers.
The access gap
The formal pipeline gates AI to a fraction of who could do it.
In India, the standard path to an AI engineering job runs through B.Tech, M.Tech, or M.Sc. programs in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, or Data Science. Three things make that path narrow:
01 · Stream gating
PCM-only entry
Most B.Tech AI / DS programs require Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics in class 11-12. Commerce, arts, and humanities students are filtered out before they get to apply. The filter has no relationship to whether someone could engineer an AI product.
02 · Cost gating
₹4–25 lakhs
Tuition for a four-year B.Tech in AI/DS at a credible private university runs ₹4–8 lakhs per year. Tier-1 institutions cost more. For most working families, this is years of savings — or a loan that compounds before the graduate has earned a salary.
03 · Time gating
Four years, full-time
A B.Tech requires you to be a full-time student for four years. For someone already working, supporting a family, or trying to switch careers at 25 or 30, that is rarely an option. The result: people who could become excellent AI engineers stay where they are because the only legible path requires sacrificing what they already have.
What ABCsteps is
A 20-lesson practical AI engineering course. Open to anyone. Founder-coordinated.
ABCsteps teaches the engineering layer of building AI products: editor, terminal, version control, containers, cloud deployment, APIs, databases, AI integration, prompt engineering, documentation, shipping. The lessons are written first, projects second, video as support. Every lesson is publicly readable on this site before anyone pays.
No prerequisites
Lesson 01 starts with "what is code" and "what does an AI assistant actually do." No assumed maths background. No assumed CS background. The structure is designed for an absolute beginner who is willing to read.
Build at every step
Each lesson produces an artefact — code committed to GitHub, a container running, an API endpoint responding, a leaderboard live on the internet. By the end, you have a portfolio of real projects, not certificates.
Honest about limits
ABCsteps does not give you a degree. It does not promise placement. It does not claim to replace four years of structured CS study if that is genuinely what you need. It teaches AI engineering. The rest is on you.
Honest comparison
ABCsteps vs the alternatives.
For a learner deciding where to invest the next year of their life and a chunk of their savings, the alternatives matter. Here is how ABCsteps compares to the four most common paths to AI engineering knowledge in India today.
| Dimension | ABCsteps | B.Tech AI/DS | NPTEL / SWAYAM | Coursera / Udemy |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free to read · Job-Ready Track INR 4,999 | INR 4–8 lakhs per year × 4 years | Free; certification fees per course | Free to audit; INR 3–8K per certificate |
| Duration | 20 lessons · self-paced | 4 years full-time | 8–12 weeks per course | 4–8 weeks per specialization |
| Prerequisites | None. Open to anyone willing to read. | PCM in class 11-12 + entrance exam | Varies; many require math background | Varies; some require coding fluency |
| What you receive | 20 written lessons, real projects, study pack, founder access | Degree, transcript, placement cell, peer cohort | Lectures, assignments, optional certificate | Video lectures, quizzes, course certificate |
| What it teaches | Practical AI engineering — coding, deployment, AI integration, shipping | Full CS curriculum + AI specialization theory + research methodology | Specific topic per course (often academic) | Specific topic per course (often product-focused) |
| Founder/instructor access | Direct WhatsApp coordination with Divyanshu | Office hours during semester | Discussion forum; limited TA access | Forum-based; varies by course |
| Degree / accreditation | No degree. No accreditation. Course completion only. | Yes — UGC / AICTE / autonomous | Joint certification with IIT/IISc | Course certificate; rarely degree-equivalent |
| Best fit | Career switchers, non-PCM students, working professionals | 17–22 year olds with PCM and full-time availability | Augmenting an existing CS degree | Topic-specific upskill for working engineers |
None of these is universally "better." If you are 17 and your family can fund a B.Tech, the formal degree gives you things ABCsteps cannot — accreditation, placement cell, peer network, four uninterrupted years to mature as an engineer. ABCsteps exists for the cases where that path is closed to you, too expensive, or simply the wrong shape for your life.
Right for
Who ABCsteps is built for
- Commerce, arts, humanities students who want to enter AI engineering but were filtered out by science-stream gating in school.
- Working professionals who cannot leave a job to study full-time but can study seriously in evenings and weekends.
- Engineering graduates from non-AI streams (mechanical, civil, electrical) who want to add AI engineering capability without doing another degree.
- College students currently doing a different B.Tech or B.Sc who want practical AI engineering skill alongside their formal program.
- Self-taught builders who can already code a bit and want a structured path to ship a real AI product end-to-end.
- Career switchers at 25, 30, 35 for whom going back to a four-year program is not a real option.
Not right for
Who ABCsteps is honestly not for
- Anyone whose specific career requires a degree. Government roles, certain MNCs, certain visa categories, and most postgraduate programs need an accredited degree. ABCsteps does not give you one.
- Anyone wanting deep AI research / theoretical mathematics. A research career in machine learning needs the formal mathematics, statistics, and theory that an M.Tech or PhD provides. We teach engineering, not research.
- Anyone who needs a placement guarantee. ABCsteps does not promise jobs, salaries, or hiring. The course teaches skill and ships proof of work; whether that converts to a job depends on you, the market, and verified employer programs.
- Anyone unwilling to read. The lessons are written-first. If you only want to passively watch videos, this curriculum will frustrate you.
- Anyone looking for a shortcut. ABCsteps is honest about effort: 20 substantial lessons, real projects, real reading. The price is low; the work is not.
A note from Divyanshu
Why I built this.
I have been writing software for over a decade. Most of what I do day-to-day — read code, run a container, hit an API, store data, integrate an LLM — was not taught in any classroom. It came from reading documentation, building things that broke, and reading more documentation.
The four-year B.Tech path is genuinely valuable. I am not against it. But I have watched too many smart people get filtered out of AI engineering because they took commerce in class 11, or because their family could not fund a private university, or because they discovered the field at 28 when going back to college was not a real option. They are not less capable. The system simply has no entry point for them.
ABCsteps is the entry point I wish had existed. The price is low because the goal is access, not margin. The course is open because gating educational content behind paywalls is the opposite of why I started. The 20 lessons are deliberately the engineering layer — what you actually do at a desk to ship an AI product — because that is the most valuable layer to teach first.
If this fits, enroll. If it does not, the lessons are still here for you to read for free. That is the deal.
Divyanshu Singh Chouhan
Founder · ABC Steps Technologies Pvt Ltd · Jodhpur, India
The path
Read the curriculum first. Enroll only if it fits.
Every one of the 20 lessons is publicly readable on this site. The blog has 30+ deep articles on the same topics. Read what is here for free, decide if the teaching style works for you, and enroll only if you want the founder-coordinated pack and direct guidance.
Founder-coordinated enrollment · WhatsApp +91 96100 01234