IBL News

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  • AI Initiatives to Accelerate As Organizations Want to Secure Competitive Advantages

    AI Initiatives to Accelerate As Organizations Want to Secure Competitive Advantages

    IBL News | New York

    Artificial Intelligence (AI) initiatives continue to accelerate as more organizations embrace the digital transformation of their core operations, research firm Gartner said in its last report, “Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence, 2021,” and as shown in the graphic below.

    As a result, business firms will further explore emerging technologies to secure competitive advantages, such as nonfungible tokens (NTF), sovereign cloud, data fabric, generative AI, and composable networks.

    “Technology innovation is a key enabler of competitive differentiation and is the catalyst for transforming many industries. Breakthrough technologies are continually appearing, challenging even the most innovative organizations to keep up,” said Brian Burke, Research Vice President at Gartner.

    There are four trends that are driving AI innovation in the near term, stated Gartner.

    • Responsible AI. “Stakeholders are demanding increased trust, transparency, fairness, and auditability of AI technologies,” according to Svetlana Sicular, Research Vice President at Gartner.
    • Small and wide data. “By 2025, 70 percent of organizations will be compelled to shift their focus from big to small and wide data, providing more context for analytics and making AI less data-hungry,” Gartner predicts.
    • Operationalization of AI platforms. “Only half of AI projects make it from pilot into production, and those that do take an average of nine months to do so,” said Sicular.
    • Efficient use of resources. “Given the complexity and scale of the data, models and compute resources involved in AI deployments, AI innovation requires such resources to be used at maximum efficiency,” Gartner explains.

     

     

     

     

     

    On the other hand, O’Reilly announced a free virtual event that will cover the latest developments, tools, best practices, and critical issues for data and AI. It will take place from 10:00 am to 1:30 pm ET on Thursday, October 14.

    Topics of discussion will include prototyping and pipelines to deployment, DevOps, and responsible and ethical AI. In addition, Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly’s Founder, and CEO will deliver the closing address, “The Future of Data and AI.”

    Keynotes

    • AI in Healthcare
      • Speaker: Jeremy Howard, Founding Researcher, fast.ai
    • How to Keep Up with ML
      • Speaker: Aurélien Géron, Author of Hands-On Machine Learning with Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow

    Data Track

    • Prototype to Pipeline: Evolving from Data Exploration to Automated Data Processing
      • Speaker: Sev Leonard, Senior Software Engineer, Fletch
    • Watch Me Learn: Querying Data the Right Way
      • Speaker: Vinoo Ganesh, Head of Business Engineering at Ashler Capital, Citadel
    • Improve Data Quality with a Focus on Data Reliability and Observability
      • Speaker: Barr Moses, Cofounder and CEO, Monte Carlo
    • Train and Predict with Amazon Redshift ML Using SQL
      • Speakers: Chris Fregly, Developer Advocate for AI and Machine Learning, Amazon Web Services, and Antje Barth, Senior Developer Advocate for AI and Machine Learning, Amazon Web Services

    AI Track

    • What’s Still Missing from the Responsible AI Movement
      • Speaker: Aileen Nielsen, Fellow in Law and Technology, ETH Zurich, and Author of Practical Time Series Analysis and Practical Fairness
    • MLOps from Zero to One
      • Speaker: Noah Gift, Lecturer at UC Davis and Northwestern and Author of Practical MLOps: Operationalizing ML Models
    • NeuralQA: A Usable Library for Question Answering on Large Datasets Using BERT-Based Models
      • Speaker: Victor Dibia, Research Engineer in Machine Learning, Cloudera Fast Forward Labs
    • Demystifying Scalable Machine Learning with the Spark Ecosystem
      • Speaker: Adi Polak, Senior Software Engineer and Developer, Microsoft, and Author of the upcoming book Machine Learning with Apache Spark

    • Registration site for O’Reilly Radar: Data & AI

  • Open-Source Related Courses on edX Attract Two Million Enrollments

    Open-Source Related Courses on edX Attract Two Million Enrollments

    IBL News | New York

    The open-source training courses on edX.org offered by The Linux Foundation reached two million enrollments to date, according to its data.

    The San Francisco-based non-profit organization — that employs Linus Torvalds himself —has released two dozen courses on edX. These classes can be audited for free by the student.

    The offerings cover technologies like cloud infrastructure, blockchain, networking, and DevOps.

    The most popular classes are:

    Today, Linux powers 98% of the world’s super-computers, most of the servers powering the Internet, and tens of millions of Android smartphones and consumer devices.

    “As open source has become dominant in the technology space, The Linux Foundation saw a huge need for more accessible, quality training options to close the skills gap and ensure there is enough talent in the market to meet demand,” said Clyde Seepersad, SVP and General Manager, Training & Certification at The Linux Foundation.

    “Our partnership with edX has enabled us to make high-quality training from expert instructors available to millions of people at no cost,” he added.


     

  • Students at Walden University Find the Institution’s New AI Tutor Useful

    Students at Walden University Find the Institution’s New AI Tutor Useful

    IBL News | New York

    Walden University demoed its AI-powered tutor named Julian that helps students reinforce their learning through practice. This tool, built with Google Cloud’s AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities, was introduced in early August this year.

    This virtual tutor was developed, according to the university, to help students master concepts — not just review them — through on-demand learning activities in a personalized way.

    The tool engages students in dialogue via chat functionality, offers learning activities, evaluates student responses, and provides feedback to students as they complete activities.

    “Students will see a new set of activities generated by the AI-powered tutor every time they interact with the tool,” explained Karthik Venkatesh, CIO at Walden. “It also creates educational notes for the student, which they can reference throughout the program and beyond.”

    Students who tried the Walden-AI instructor agreed it is “a good addition to their learning process, and particularly useful in adding to their knowledge on various concepts and for completing assignments.”

    “This application of AI has the potential to open so many doors for further student engagement and success,” noted Steven Butschi, Head of Education at Google Cloud. “By working with Walden University on this technology, we look forward to getting real-time feedback and incorporating learnings to continue iterating on this tool to help students and faculty alike.”

    In the video below, Walden’s CTO, Steven Tom, Walden’s CIO Karthik Venkatesh, and Google Cloud’s Lukman Ramsey provide an overview of the AI-powered tutor and a demonstration.

  • Salaries for College Graduates in Technical Majors Continue to Climb

    Salaries for College Graduates in Technical Majors Continue to Climb

    IBL News | New York

    Even in the face of the pandemic, starting salaries for new college graduates are climbing: 2.5% compared to the previous year of 2019.

    The average starting salary for the Class of 2020 was $55,260, according to a new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).

    Technical and STEM-related majors were the highest-paid among students earning bachelor’s degrees.

    The list of the ten majors was led by petroleum engineering, computer programming, and computer engineering, as shown in the graphic below.

    Another growth area was healthcare, especially due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, the increased demand for nurses as frontline workers fueled the 2.1% increase for registered nursing majors to $58,626 for the Class of 2020.

     

    MAJOR AVERAGE STARTING SALARY
    Petroleum engineering $87,989
    Computer programming $86,098
    Computer engineering $85,996
    Computer science $85,766
    Electrical, electronics, and communications engineering $80,819
    Operations research $80,166
    Computer and information science $78,603
    Statistics $75,916
    Applied mathematics $73,558
    Chemical engineering $72,713

    Source: Summer 2021 Salary Survey, National Association of Colleges and Employers

     

  • The Rapid Adoption of Open Source Software Makes Finding Talent More Difficult

    The Rapid Adoption of Open Source Software Makes Finding Talent More Difficult

    IBL News | New York

    Skills in cloud and container technologies are now in the most demand, as 88% of professionals are using DevOps practices, and most of the companies increase their use of those tools. Meanwhile, 92% of hiring managers are having difficulty finding enough talent to fill open positions.

    These findings are included in the 9th annual Open Source Jobs Report elaborated by The Linux Foundation and edX after surveying over 750 open-source software professionals worldwide and 200 hiring managers.

    As the hiring is rebounding in the wake of the pandemic, the talent shortage persists. Furthermore, the rapid adoption of open-source software, and, especially cloud-native applications, is widening the skills gap in the market.

    Jim Zemlin, Executive Director at The Linux Foundation, explained that “open source talent is in high demand, and for those looking for the best career paths, it is evident that cloud-native computing, DevOps, Linux, and security hold the most promising opportunities.”

    “Employers are meeting these needs by increasing training and learning opportunities,” said Johannes Heinlein, Chief Commercial Officer and SVP of Strategic Partnerships at edX.

    In this context, employers are reporting that they prioritize training investments to close skills gaps, with 58% using this tactic; by comparison, 29% bring in external consultants to close their skill gaps.

     

     

  • Class Enhances Its Zoom-Based Platform with a Breakout Room Feature

    Class Enhances Its Zoom-Based Platform with a Breakout Room Feature

    IBL News | New York

    Class.com unveiled this month an enhanced breakout room feature, along with other functionalities for its educational platform built on Zoom, following its business view of making virtual instruction more like face-to-face learning environments.

    The breakout feature will facilitate group collaboration and allow instructors to:

    • View all breakout rooms at once in one place.
    • Monitor activity in breakout rooms at the same time.
    • Send chat messages to and from individual breakout room groups.
    • Share web pages, videos, and files with specific breakout rooms.
    • Launch individual teaching or training activities to specific breakout rooms.

    These features will make it easier for instructors to facilitate group collaboration online and enhance learner engagement and success with online learning.

    “The ability to work in smaller groups has been shown to be an effective method to motivate learners, promote active learning, and develop key critical-thinking, communication, and decision-making skills, which is why this feature is so important to current and future customers,” wrote Michael Chasen, education software pioneer and CEO at Class.com.

     

  • Almost 800 Million Youngsters Do Not Have Basic Literacy Skills, Says UNESCO

    Almost 800 Million Youngsters Do Not Have Basic Literacy Skills, Says UNESCO

    IBL News | New York

    A dramatic reality that rarely makes headlines: A total of 773 million youth and adults worldwide do not have basic literacy skills and therefore are deprived of access to decent jobs and participation in their communities. Two-thirds of them are women.

    The United Nation’s UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning provided this date while calling the international community to increase funding and political will to advance into universal literacy.

    Currently, the funding gap to reach functional literacy is $17 billion. Countries like Burkina Faso, Haiti, and South Sudan are in the most need of funding.

    The COVID-19 outbreak has shown the dramatic face of the lack of literacy. “The pandemic clearly showed that literacy saves lives,” said David Atchoarena, Director of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL).

    “Only if people can read and write will they be able to access life-saving information and be empowered to act responsibly during emergencies such as the one the pandemic has brought about.”

    This month, on International Literacy Day, Audrey Azoulay, Chief of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), pointed out that his institution is prompting to “rethink literacy in our contemporary world as part of the right to education and a means to create more inclusive and linguistically and culturally diverse societies.”

     

  • Udemy.com Offers Business Customers Hands-On Labs for Skills Development

    Udemy.com Offers Business Customers Hands-On Labs for Skills Development

    IBL News | New York

    Udemy Business expanded with a new offering: Udemy Business Pro, which brings together interactive labs, skills assessment, pre-curated Udemy Paths, workplaces for risk-free practice environments, and hands-on labs across critical skills in Information Technology, Software Development, and Data & Analytics.

    “Seventy percent of employees say they haven’t yet mastered the skills they need for the job they have today,” according to Gartner. “Additionally, only one in five employees say they have the skills they need for both their current roles and future careers.”

    The Covid pandemic has accelerated already changing skill requirements across industries. Udemy’s 2021 Workplace Learning Trends Report revealed that data science and data analysis experienced a major increase in demand across various industries.

    The report found that companies saw a 466% increase in data modeling training from 2019 to 2020, and a 1,488% increase in data warehouse training, demonstrating a major emphasis on data analytics skill-building.

    “Udemy Business Pro will bring personalized, practical, and hands-on learning to essential technical roles, which we believe will ultimately improve productivity and help organizations build technical teams ready for the challenges of tomorrow,” said Greg Brown, President of Udemy Business.

  • A Majority of New Online Learners Are Women, Finds Coursera’s Report

    A Majority of New Online Learners Are Women, Finds Coursera’s Report

    IBL News | New York

    More women are participating in online learning and certificate training programs aimed at entry-level digital jobs. A total of 52% of new online learners in 2021 were women, up from 47% in 2019, despite the unemployment crisis caused by the pandemic disproportionately impacted them.

    This data highlights a narrowing gender gap in distance learning, reflected in a study of Coursera (NYSE: COUR), released yesterday.

    “Our research suggests that gender gaps in online learning narrowed during the pandemic, even as gender employment gaps widened,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO at Coursera. “We are encouraged by how women are embracing online learning to develop new skills that can help accelerate their return to work and promote economic mobility.”

    The Women and Skills Report (PDF download), which includes data from 40 million new learners registered during the pandemic, indicates that top skills include leadership and STEM skills, like communication, management, entrepreneurship, probability and statistics, computer programming, and theoretical computer science.

    Top courses taken include COVID-19 Contact Tracing from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and The Science of Wellbeing from Yale University.

     

  • 2U’s CEO Says His Company Will Incorporate Its Job Placement Tool on edX’s Courses

    2U’s CEO Says His Company Will Incorporate Its Job Placement Tool on edX’s Courses

    IBL News | New York

    2U’s CEO, Chip Paucek, asked edX partners to give his company a shot. “All we need is an opportunity to prove that the future of edX will grow; the brand will grow,” he said during an interview with EdSurge.com posted yesterday. “You will see us begin to advertise edX outright and grow the learner base. And I think that’ll be good for everybody.”

    Public, for-profit company 2U (NASDAQ: TWOU) — which bought edX Inc from MIT and Harvard last June for $800 million — is following a brand strategy similar to Alphabet and Google to keep edX’s partners on board. Chip Paucek already used this analogy during his first public appearance with Anant Agarwal, CEO at edX, at ASU-GSV Conference in San Diego.

    “Our brand is more akin to Alphabet than it is to Google. People know our corporate name because we are a public company, but people don’t associate our brand with learning. Whereas with edX, the brand is just incredible,” he said to Jeffrey R. Young on EdSurge.

    edX is the third big profile company acquired by 2U, along with the boot camp provider Trilogy Education and short online courses provider GetSmarter.

    One way that 2U will benefit from edX’s large base of learners, once the deal is officially approved, is, according to Paucek, to incorporate 2U’s job placement tool, called the Career Engagement Network, within edX courses. The service was developed by the Trilogy boot camp to match its students with prospective employers.

    “We will roll it out to all of the edX paid customers,” said Paucek. edX’s Anant Agarwal said in the same interview on EdSurge that the career-services tool answers a request that some partner colleges have long wanted but that edX had not had the time or resources to develop.

    Puacek noted that some edX partners may want to buy other services from 2U as well.