Glocalising high-quality, scalable training activities in tech
Presented by: NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute
Industry: Artificial intelligence
Location: Santa Clara, USA
Size: +250 employees
Challenges:
- Organising high-quality, scalable training activities at the local level on artificial intelligence and related topics
- Scarcity of and challenge to get up-to-date teaching material in the field of artificial intelligence
Solution:
The NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (DLI) collaborates with universities and research laboratories to train professionals, educators, and students in artificial intelligence, accelerated computing, accelerated data science, and other hot topics. To this end, NVIDIA supports two complementary educator programmes — the “Teaching Kits” and “University Ambassador Program”.
Teaching Kits, developed in collaboration with academic partners, are available to qualified university educators who can integrate at their convenience the lecture materials, hands-on exercises, GPU cloud resources, etc., into curricula. These educators are also eligible to get the “instructor certification” via the DLI Ambassador Program. This certification enables them to deliver free “instructor-led workshops” to their university staff, students, and peers.
To be certified, instructor candidates must complete rigorous, course-specific evaluations, run by a DLI Master Instructor, covering technical qualifications, subject matter expertise, knowledge of the teaching kits, classroom delivery skills, and the use of the DLI platform. Once certified, instructors update their knowledge through continuing education and the annual renewal of the University Ambassador membership.
Certified instructors oversee the organisation of the workshops, including logistics, marketing, and delivery, but do receive financial support from NVIDIA to cover some of the expenses of the training activity.
Results:
This private-public partnership proves to be successful to update the knowledge of large numbers of people in highly specialised and technological fields of science. The Ambassador Program and financial support allow for rapid, local uptake of the knowledge and Training Kits and support the universities’ reskilling and upskilling efforts.
Instructor-led workshops can be scaled up by involving “teaching assistants” (with a 1:20 assistant-learner ratio) allowing up to 120 people or more to be trained at once. Upon successful completion, workshop participants receive an NVIDIA DLI certificate of competency.
Key benefits:
- The more ambassadors, the more people trained (snowball effect)
- Online courses and Training Kits maintenance costs are low
- Excellence programme that attracts instructor candidates
- Financial support to the universities’ certified instructors
Key resources:
- University educators must go through a rigorous evaluation to be certified and able to deliver workshops
- Experienced researchers and educators are busy with their academic duties