BOGOTÁ, Colombia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Colombian Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies (MinTIC) and Instituto Colombiano de Crédito Educativo y Estudios Técnicos en el Exterior (ICETEX), are offering 25,000 government employees and citizens the chance to acquire in-demand technology skills through learning on Coursera, the world’s leading online education platform. The scholarships are funded by MinTIC in partnership with ICETEX, and recipients of the scholarships, selected earlier this month, will have access to online training for artificial intelligence and digital transformation skills.
Starting now through December 20th, scholarship recipients can select Coursera as their preferred learning platform, among others, on ICETEX’s website. Learning will begin in early 2020 with five mandatory courses related to AI or digital transformation, including the popular AI for Everyone course from Andrew Ng that is also available in Spanish. Learners that complete these courses will gain unlimited access to Coursera’s course catalog, featuring 3,800 courses from 200 of the world’s top university and industry partners.
“It’s an honor to partner with ICETEX and MinTIC to invest in Colombia’s most vital resource: its people,” said Mario Chamorro, Head of Latin America, Enterprise at Coursera. “MinTIC is modeling the institutional investment needed for workforce reskilling and upskilling, and Coursera is the best partner to deliver on that investment with high-quality learning that’s accessible on a national scale.”
Coursera already has more than 1.1 million learners in Colombia, with many reporting improved career outcomes from skills development. For Juan Andrés Espinosa Torres, a learner from Colombia, acquiring R programming skills on Coursera helped him stand out as a job candidate. He says, “my knowledge of R, combined with the abilities I had at the time, were big determining factors in me getting the job from a group of almost 1,000 people.”
To serve the growing number of Spanish-speaking learners, Coursera currently offers more than 400 courses in Spanish. Earlier this year, Coursera announced its first fully-Spanish degree in software engineering in partnership with top-ranked Colombian institution Universidad de los Andes.
The partnership with MinTIC and ICETEX marks Coursera for Governments and Organizations’ expansion into Latin America. Launched in 2017, Coursera for Governments and Organizations trains government employees and citizens across the United States, Singapore, the Philippines, India, Australia, France, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, and a number of others.
To learn more about Coursera for Governments, visit https://www.coursera.org/government.
About Coursera
Coursera was founded by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng with a vision of providing life-transforming learning experiences to anyone, anywhere. It is now the world’s largest online learning platform for higher education. More than 200 of the world’s top universities and industry educators partner with Coursera to offer courses, Specializations, certificates, and degrees that empower over 45 million learners around the world to achieve their career goals. 2,000 companies trust the company’s enterprise platform Coursera for Business to transform their talent. Coursera for Governments equips government employees and citizens with in-demand skills to build a competitive workforce. Coursera is backed by investors that include Kleiner Perkins, New Enterprise Associates, GSV Capital, Learn Capital, and SEEK Group.
About the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications
As stated in Colombian Law 1341 or ICT Law, the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (MinTIC) is the Colombian government entity responsible for designing, adopting, and promoting the policies, plans, programs, and projects of the Information Technology and Information Technology sector. It is responsible for increasing and facilitating the access of all Colombian inhabitants to Information and Communication Technologies and their benefits. (From MinTIC website)
About ICETEX
ICETEX is a Colombian institution aimed at promoting higher education in Colombia, through the «granting of educational credits and their collection, with own or third party resources, to the population with lower economic possibilities and good academic performance» .2 Likewise It is intended to facilitate access to educational opportunities offered by the international community to raise the quality of life of Colombians and thus contribute to the economic and social development of the country. ICETEX has branches throughout Colombia and trains hundreds of thousands of citizens, including many from disadvantaged backgrounds.