IBM announced its partnership with Indian Institute of Technology – Kharagpur, Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay, the Indian Statistical Institute – Kolkata and Birla Institute of Technology and Science – Pilani to introduce a Cognitive Computing course to empower India’s university students to build applications infused with Watson’s intelligence.
In January 2014, IBM made a billion dollar investment to usher in a new era of cognitive computing. Over the past nine months, IBM has made some breakthrough discoveries and met significant milestones with new partners and clients across the world. Watson is a ground-breaking platform that represents a new era of computing based on its ability to interact in natural language, process vast amounts of disparate forms of big data and learn from each interaction.
The Watson advancements include academic partnerships with the IIT- Kharagpur, IIT- Bombay, The Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata and BITS – Pilani to introduce a Cognitive Computing course to empower India’s university students to build applications infused with Watson’s intelligence. It also includes Watson client engagements across six continents and more than 20 countries, including India, South Africa, Australia, the U.K., Thailand, Canada, the U.S and more.
This first-of-its-kind in India, Cognitive Computing course will help students gain technical knowledge and hands-on expertise in fields such as natural language processing, machine learning and content lifecycle management that is required to develop new cognitive computing applications.
Co-designed by the Watson Group and leading academic experts in fields such as Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science, students who take the course will begin by learning through presentations and, discussions about Watson, studying its underlying technologies before switching to hands-on engagement with Watson.
Enrolled students will form a business team and together they will have access to their Watson instance via the Watson Developer Cloud. As a classroom, they will select an industry to focus on, such as retail, travel or healthcare, and work as a team to ingest relevant data into Watson and then train it. Ultimately, the students will break into sub-teams and develop prototype apps and a business plan based on their Watson industry of choice.
The initiative is part of an ongoing effort to up skill the students, expand and strengthen their understanding of Big Data and Analytics in order to meet the growing demand for highly skilled workforce- needed in today’s marketplace. IBM has been hosting Watson Case Competitions over the past year giving students a glimpse into the promise Watson holds to transform industry and professions.
Prof. Pabitra Mitra, Associate Professor for Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, said, “In collaboration with IBM, our goal is to secure a future for a wide range of students including those studying computer science, mathematics, communications and marketing.”
Prof. Pushpak Bhattacharyya, Computer Science and Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay said, “To embrace this growing opportunity, companies today must hire a workforce with a broad range of Cognitive Computing, Big Data and Analytics expertise.”