In September, Microsoft launched a free beginners' Python course, and unveiled a new AI Business School course in the following month. Today, the firm has announced new Azure Machine Learning courses and scholarships in collaboration with Udacity. The Redmond giant aims to address the growing need for AI and data science positions through the availability of these courses, especially given how the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the demand of remote resources.
The digital education platform will host one introductory course, dubbed "Introduction to machine learning on Azure" for free. With the availability of 10,000 spots, the course will offer students the opportunity to learn through a minimal coding-based experience, with focus on machine learning basics powered by Azure's automated ML and drag-and-drop features, and further assistance through hands-on labs.
The top 300 performers in this course will then be given scholarships for the more advanced Nanodegree Program with Microsoft Azure, which is paid. This program will provide open source tools and frameworks that include PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn, and ONNX for students to deploy more complex ML solutions.
In a talk with Udacity CEO Gabe Dalporto, Azure CVP Julia White commented on the collaboration, noting that, "It's a wonderful moment, to go and think about retraining and getting skilled in a really important area that will continue to be highly relevant as we move forward".
The application window for the foundations course will be open from June 10 to June 30. The course will then begin on July 8 and will be available until September 10. You can find out more details and register for the course on its page.
