University Of Louisville And IBM Sign Partnership To Prepare Future Generations In Blockchain Tech

University Of Louisville And IBM Sign Partnership To Prepare Future Generations In Technology

The University of Louisville (UofL) and IBM have recently partnered in order to establish an IBM Skills Academy focused on digital technology skills. The main goal behind this cooperation is to prepare future experts in the matter. The information was released by the university in a recent article.

UofL And IBM Sign New Partnership

This academy is going to be providing educational tools related to artificial intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity, cloud computing, IoT, quantum computing, data science, and design thinking.

IBM will be making available software and cloud technology with a value of over $5 million a year.

UofL President Neeli Bendapudi commented that the value invested by IBM is much larger than this figure. Bendapudi made the partnership happen with Naguib Attia, IBM’s vice president of Global University Programs.

This will be the first academy of its kind around the world and that will be developed with a higher education institute. There are other four universities that want to open similar academies in the United States as well.

Bendapudi commented about it:

“When I heard about IBM’s vision to try and bridge the digital divide, I knew we had to work quickly. It is important for us to be nimble with this, to be truly transformative, to say, ‘We see what’s coming, how can we be proactive?’ I am extremely grateful to IBM.”

Individuals at the University will benefit from this academy through course credit and also an IBM certification. At the same time, the university will receive the necessary skills curriculum to teach colleagues and students as well.

It is worth mentioning that the number of technology-related job proposals has been growing over the last few years. Blockchain technology is a good example of this. According to a recent report released by LinkedIn, the role of blockchain developer has registered an increase of 33 times in 2018. The report also informed that six out of the 15 emerging jobs are related in some way to AI. Machine learning engineers registered a 12 times growth year-over-year.

Mayor Greg Fischer said that the goal is to quintuple the number of employees receiving technology training every year and the partnership is an example of this.

“If we’re not integrating technology in everything we do, we’re really missing the boat,” commented Fischer.