Amazon is offering free training and scholarships for people hoping to fashion a career out of generative AI. On Monday, the companyannounced three initiatives designed to help workers and students alike learn the new technologies and business models of AI.
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As part of a program dubbed "AI Ready," Amazon will provide the following benefits:
First up, the eight new, free courses cover in-demand jobs for developers and technical workers as well as those for business leaders and non-technical professionals.
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The new courses are in addition to the 80 free and low-cost generative AI classes already offered through AWS.
Developers and the technical crowd can take advantage of the following free courses:
Non-technical professionals can try the following courses:
Available through theAWS Generative AI Scholarship program , AWS will offer$12 million worth of Udacity scholarships to more than 50,000 high school and university students from underserved and underrepresented communities around the world.
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Free to eligible students, the new Udacity course "Introducing Generative AI with AWS" explains generative AI concepts and includes a hands-on project. After successfully passing the course, students get a certificate from Udacity.
Finally, a new collaboration betweenAmazon Future Engineer and Code.org will challenge students to create their own virtual music video set using songs from artists such as Miley Cyrus and Harry Styles. For the Hour of Code Dance Party: AI Edition, participants will code the virtual dancer's choreography and set up emojis as AI prompts to design animated backgrounds.
The goal is to teach the students about large language models and explain how they're used in the predictive analytics that generate images and text.
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Hour of Code will debut during Computer Science Education Week, Dec. 4-10, for students and teachers in kindergarten through 12th grade. To support Hour of Code, AWS will also offer$8 million in AWS Cloud computing credits to Code.org.
With generative AI causing waves across the business world, learning the necessary AI skills is increasingly seen as a new and in-demand career path. Astudy by AWS and research firm Access Partnership found that AI will become more critical among businesses, with 93% of them anticipating the use of AI-based technologies over the next five years.
To meet those needs, 73% of businesses said hiring workers with AI skills is currently a priority, though most say they're unable to find the right people. For professionals who do learn the necessary skills, employers expect that they'll earn up to 47% higher salaries.