Coven Works Announce Partnership with Amazon Web Services to Train 400 Machine Learning Developers
Coven Works have announced a collaboration with the AWS Educate programme from Amazon Web Services to launch an Artificial Intelligence (AI) and data science boot-camp for 400 West African students, based in Nigeria and around Africa.
This is part of their effort to bring the most in-demand skillset to the next generation of African builders and developers, empowering young people from developing countries with software engineering skills and matching them with high paying jobs.
Coven Works uses an intensive boot-camp and a 1-year fellowship to teach youths to be AI engineers and data scientists and has successfully trained about 700 participants in four coven labs situated across Nigeria. With efforts in the works to expand the scope in 2019, Program Director for Africa at Coven Works, Dunsin Fatuase explains that the move is strategically aimed at ensuring the continent participates in the digital revolution. “These youths are from conflict regions in developing countries and are largely marginalized. Working with the AWS Educate program is a strategic move to improve the capacity of our AI engineers and add them to a global workforce with employers like JPMorgan, Salesforce, and Blackboard”, he explains.
The students will branch out to learn more on AWS Educate after completing the 6-week prerequisite in-class boot-camp. They will select from 11 cloud career pathways, complete the AWS Educate curriculum, and then Coven Works will work with them to set up job interviews. By working with AWS, Coven Works hopes to add 400 machine learning (ML) engineers to the global workforce.
Senior Manager, AWS Educate, Amazon Web Services, Inc. emphasised the importance of the collaboration, “Through this collaboration with Coven Works, we are excited to provide the next generation of African builders and developers with the skills, hands-on learning, and pathways into the cloud and AI community”. He added that “As we travel around the world, ministers of education and workforce development keep pointing to the growing demand for cloud skills and the grand opportunity that we face”.
While speaking of the company’s aspirations, Coven Works co-founder Sola Amusan says the company will continue to focus in upskilling youths in disadvantaged regions, provide cutting-edge learning in data science and AI for Africa’s working professionals and build tomorrow’s workforce. “Our program teaches resilience and global citizenship, and we are excited about this relationship with AWS”, he said.
Cloud computing and AI are #1 and #2 as the most in-demand skills on LinkedIn1. Moreover, Gartner2 says that more than 70% of organizations will require A.I to assist employees’ productivity by 2021. The World Economic Forum (WEF) report on the future of work3 ranks these competencies high among skills needed for tomorrow’s jobs.
The program will be available on www.covenworks.com/aws from February 14th 2019.
