Alliance gives students access to free, cutting-edge data science and machine learning tools
Data and AI company, Databricks has launched Databricks University Alliance, a global program to help university students get hands-on experience using Databricks in the classroom.
The program, available at no cost to institutions of higher education, aims to expose students to the tools and cloud platforms that enable highly scalable data science and machine learning. This will allow them gain critical knowledge and experience needed to drive innovation as they join data teams across the global workforce.
Bede Hackney country manager A/NZ at Databricks told CIO Tech Asia, there’s currently a shortage of data engineers and scientists in the market place.
“This is a worldwide reality,” he said. “Helping university students to get hands-on experience with some of the professional tools they’ll be using right after university in the workplace is going to help these future professionals as well as CIOs and companies to accelerate their creation of value.”
Matei Zaharia chief technologist at Databricks and assistant professor of Computer Science at Stanford University said the company’s mission is help data teams solve the world’s toughest problems extends far beyond the present.
“We are committed to driving the next generation of business innovation through machine learning and AI,” he said. “Our goal with this program is to continue to help build the capacity of qualified and prepared data scientists, engineers, and analysts who can work with industry-scale data sets on public cloud environments.”
Zaharia said as data analytics continues to explode and the technology used to find value from that data advances further each year, the demand for data scientists, engineers and analysts will accelerate.
“Over the last five years, Google searches for Data Science have quadrupled, and Glassdoor has ranked Data Science as one of the top ten Best Jobs in America every year since 2015,” he said. “However, because the demand is so high, it’s crucial for students to graduate with the skills needed to successfully join this increasingly competitive industry.”
Through partnerships with public cloud companies, the Databricks University Alliance helps increase the pipeline of students trained on the cutting-edge of data analytics.
By giving students access to tutorials, content and training materials on open source tools including Apache Spark, Delta Lake and MLflow, companies benefit from having a more competent pool of data science and machine learning professionals that they can hire in the marketplace. Equally, universities benefit from deeper access to tools, materials, and cloud resources.
Tags: AI & Machine LearningData scienceDatabricksLearning Tools
