IBM Launches 'Big Data' Bootcamps in Universities

Now that Watson has had its latest resurgence of fame and appeared as a top trending topic on both Google and Twitter, IBM is about to show college students how to use the underlying technologies of the supercomputer. In a push called "Big Data," the company will promote bootcamps on information management of massive amounts of data through university locations, IBM innovation centers, and online.

The camps, which are free, will last from three to five days and take place in classroom settings. Besides students, the company has invited IT professionals to participate. At the end of sessions, participants will have the chance to take free technical mastery tests and IBM certification exams.

Bootcamp sessions will cover discrete areas, including the use of IBM data management software such as DB2, pureXML, Informix, InfoSphere Optim and Guardium, and open source applications Hadoop and Eclipse. Students will receive lessons in management and analysis skills for big data environments, including data federation, integration, and warehousing techniques, as well as data management planning, and data governance, quality and security strategies.

The new initiative follows on IBM's Watson Jeopardy! victory, where the computer showed how artificial intelligence can work in the real world (at least in the real world of a game show). The system consists of 90 clustered IBM Power 750 Express servers, a potent build-up of hardware that can pick through 500 gigabytes of information a second.

But IBM said that as more organizations move to similar systems to handle their big data challenges, a skills gap is surfacing.

"Companies are amassing up to petabytes of information during peak hours of operations, and they see an opportunity to use this data to gain new insights into their customers and get ahead of the competition," said Arvind Krishna, general manager of IBM Information Management. "Uncovering insights hidden among data in existing IT systems, and outside of the firewall in social networks, on clouds, and from mobile devices, requires today's IT professionals to possess new skills."

Mahatma Gandhi Mission's College of Engineering & Technology in India recently launched campus workshops on DB2 for its engineering students and faculty. Currently, more than 600 students and faculty members are certified and trained on IBM technologies.

"IBM is bringing real world industry experience to students to keep them in touch with emerging technologies and IT trends such as big data," said Professor Nareshkumar Harale, head of Computer Engineering. "When universities and businesses collaborate, they build the next generation of skilled information technology leaders to create new opportunities, fuel economic growth and solve challenges that can improve the way we live."

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • glowing futuristic laptop with a holographic screen displaying digital text

    New Turnitin Product Brings AI-Powered Tools to Students with Instructor Guardrails

    Academic integrity solution provider Turnitin has introduced Turnitin Clarity, a paid add-on for Turnitin Feedback Studio that provides a composition workspace for students with educator-guided AI assistance, AI-generated writing feedback, visibility into integrity insights, and more.

  • From Fire TV to Signage Stick: University of Utah's Digital Signage Evolution

    Jake Sorensen, who oversees sponsorship and advertising and Student Media in Auxiliary Business Development at the University of Utah, has navigated the digital signage landscape for nearly 15 years. He was managing hundreds of devices on campus that were incompatible with digital signage requirements and needed a solution that was reliable and lowered labor costs. The Amazon Signage Stick, specifically engineered for digital signage applications, gave him the stability and design functionality the University of Utah needed, along with the assurance of long-term support.

  • Abstract AI circuit board pattern

    New Nonprofit to Work Toward Safer, Truthful AI

    Turing Award-winning AI researcher Yoshua Bengio has launched LawZero, a new nonprofit aimed at developing AI systems that prioritize safety and truthfulness over autonomy.

  • two large brackets facing each other with various arrows, circles, and rectangles flowing between them

    1EdTech Partners with DXtera to Support Ed Tech Interoperability

    1EdTech Consortium and DXtera Institute have announced a partnership aimed at improving access to learning data in postsecondary and higher education.