Amazon has launched the “AI Ready” initiative, an ambitious commitment to provide free online courses in artificial intelligence (AI) skills to 2 million people worldwide by 2025. This effort comes in response to the growing demand for AI talent and the potential for higher salaries for those who possess skills in this area. The initiative seeks to make AI education accessible to all, eliminating cost as a barrier and opening new avenues for learning in one of the most transformative technological fields of our generation.
As part of the “AI Ready” initiative, Amazon has announced eight new free AI and generative AI courses. These courses are designed to align with in-demand jobs, providing a range of learning from foundations to advanced levels, and aimed at both business leaders and technologists. These courses add to the more than 80 AI and generative AI resources already offered by AWS, significantly expanding learning opportunities in this field. Google has also offered similar AI courses to start with.
Courses for business and non-technical audiences
Amazon has also designed courses specifically for business and non-technical audiences. These include:
- « Introduction to Generative Artificial Intelligence « : Provides an introduction to generative AI and its applications.
- « Generative AI Learning Plan for Decision Makers « : A series of three courses that covers how to plan a generative AI project and build a generative AI-ready organization.
- “Intro to Amazon CodeWhisperer” : Teaches participants how to use Amazon’s AI code generator, which produces complete lines of code.
Advanced technical training in AI
Aimed at developers and technical audiences, Amazon offers advanced courses, including:
- « Fundamentals of Prompt Engineering « : Introduces the foundations of prompt engineering for generative AI tools.
- « Low Code Machine Learning on AWS « : Explore how to prepare data and train machine learning models with minimal code.
- « Building Language Models in AWS « : Teaches how to use Amazon SageMaker to build language models.
- « Amazon Transcribe—Getting Started « : Explains how to use Amazon Transcribe to convert speech to text.
- « Building Generative AI Applications with Amazon Bedrock « : Shows how to use Amazon Bedrock to build generative AI applications.
Generative AI Scholarships and Educational Collaborations
Amazon, through the AWS Generative AI Scholarship, will offer scholarships in Udacity, valued at more than $12 million, to more than 50,000 high school and college students from underserved and underrepresented communities globally. The goal is to expand access to AI education by providing the “Introduction to Generative AI with AWS” course and awarding a Udacity certificate upon successful completion, which is a valuable tool for future employers.
To engage young people, Amazon has partnered with Code.org to launch “Hour of Code Dance Party: AI Edition. ” This initiative offers an introduction to coding and AI, where students create their own virtual music video. The activity is not only entertaining, but also introduces students to generative AI concepts, such as large language models and their use in predictive analytics. This event will take place globally during Computer Science Education Week.
Amazon’s initiative to provide free training in AI and generative AI is a significant step towards the democratization of knowledge in emerging technologies, let’s hope that other companies follow the example so that the jobs that will be lost due to AI are gained elsewhere, otherwise society will have a problem within a very short time.
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