Amazon is introducing its Machine Learning (ML) Summer School in Australia, providing engineering and computer science students with the opportunity to learn practical ML skills from scientists at Amazon.
Up to 100 Australian students will participate in the free program, engaging in virtual classroom sessions held over four weekends during the summer. Each session will cover two modules, followed by interactive Q&A sessions with Australian-based Amazon senior ML scientists.
At Amazon, ML is used for a range of tasks from developing 3D immersive product experiences for customers online to providing scalable, data-driven recommendations for businesses.
With demand for ML roles globally expected to increase significantly over the next five years, Amazon believes it’s important to build ML skills and capabilities among the next generation of scientists and engineers.
Amazon vice president of international ML and program director, Rajeev Rastogi said the program aims to support students become industry-ready for science careers, increasing the talent pool of graduates prepared to take up business-critical ML roles globally.
“We aim to get students excited about careers in ML by showing them how concepts taught in their lectures are connected with practical applications. Amazon ML Summer School helps students experience the real-world complexity of building and implementing ML applications to deliver large scale customer impact,” he said.
“Participating students will be provided with best-in-class training on a broad range of topics core to modern ML, with tutorial sessions offering students invaluable access to ML scientists who are experts in their field. This program will be a platform to help foster ML excellence in Australia, developing applied science skills in young talent.”
Over the course of the four-week program, students will receive training in the fundamentals of ML techniques such as supervised learning, deep neural networks, probabilistic graphical models, dimensionality reduction, unsupervised learning, and sequential models, while understanding how to link those concepts to practical applications.
Amazon scholar and professor of computer science at the Austrailian National University (ANU), Stephen Gould added,“Through the Amazon ML Summer School, Australian students will have a unique opportunity to propel their careers in research and development of machine learning technologies. They will receive an intense introduction to core areas of ML from scientists who are experts in the underlying theory and tools of ML, as well as industry best practice.”
“They will gain insights honed from years of hands-on experience building and deploying machine learning applications. The teachings will complement academic coursework and provide a valuable stepping stone for putting their ML knowledge and skills to work on practical problems.”
Amazon is hosting the inaugural ML Summer School in Australia in February 2024. It is open to all students enrolled in Bachelors, Masters, and PhD programs in Engineering, Computer Science, Data Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering, Computer Vision and Machine Learning from recognised academic institutions.
Eligible students will be required to undergo an assessment focused on basic ML concepts and math fundamentals on topics such as probability, statistics, and linear algebra.