Microsoft offers public courses to build AI skills

Microsoft has added a new track to its Professional Programme courses to help people working in the IT industry build skills in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

The track is open to the public and is comprised of online courses. The applicants would use technologies like python, math, ethics, data analysis, Azure machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing and speech recognition to gain skills.

"Each course runs for three months and starts at the beginning of a quarter (January-March, April-June, July-September and October-December). The capstone runs for four weeks at the beginning of each quarter." the company said in a statement.

"The programme provides job-ready skills and real-world experience to engineers and others who are looking to improve their skills in AI and data science through a series of online courses that feature hands-on labs and expert instructors," Microsoft added.

It is part of a larger corporate effort that also includes the enterprise developer-focused AI School, which provides online videos and other assets to help developers build AI skills.

That programme includes both general educational tools for developers looking to expand AI capabilities and specific guidance on how developers can use Microsoft's tools and services.

The final project course is six weeks long and is also offered four times per year. Once the full track is completed, students will receive a digital certificate.

However, to get credit for each course, enrollees have to purchase Verified Certificates from edX.org, which hosts the programme, Engadget reported.

According to Susan Dumais, Assistant Director of Microsoft Research AI, Microsoft's employee and publicly available AI training opportunities reflect a broader push throughout the technology industry to fill a gap in workers with skills in artificial intelligence.

"AI is increasingly important in how our products and services are designed and delivered and that is true for our customers as well. Fundamentally, we are all interested in developing talent that is able to build, understand and design systems that have AI as a central component," she added.

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