Databricks Launches Global University Alliance Program

We are excited to announce the Databricks University Alliance, a global program to help students get hands-on experience using Databricks for both in-person learning and in virtual classrooms. Educators and faculty can apply here; upon acceptance members will get access to curated curriculum content, training materials, sample notebooks, webinars, and other pre-recorded content for learning data science and data engineering tools including Apache Spark, Delta Lake, and MLflow. Accepted members will also have access to a community of fellow educators in support of data science and engineering education on Databricks.

Students focused on individual skills development from home can sign up for the free Databricks Community Edition and follow along with these free one-hour hands-on workshops for aspiring data scientists, as well as access free self-paced courses from Databricks Academy, the training and certification organization within Databricks.

The Databricks University Alliance is powered by leading cloud providers such as Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS). Those educators looking for high-scale computing resources for their in-person and virtual classrooms may apply for cloud computing credits. We'll evaluate applications based on the program description, educational need for large scale computing, reputation of the school + program and availability. Courses reaching a large number of students through MOOCs or other online learning will be prioritized.

Demand for Data Scientists and Data Engineers Surges

Databricks created this program to help the supply of data scientists, engineers, and analysts meet the growing demand. In 2016 the National Science Foundation recommended a national-level data science education and training agenda for US universities. Over the last five years, Google searches for Data Science have quadrupled; in addition, Glassdoor has ranked Data Science as one of the top ten Best Jobs in America every year since they started publishing the data in 2015. At Databricks, we believe that university students should learn the latest open-source data science tools to enhance their value in the workforce upon graduation.

How to Get Started with Databricks University Alliance

The Databricks University Alliance exists to help students and professors learn and use these next-generation data analytics tools for both bricks-and-mortar and virtual classrooms. Enroll now and join universities across the globe who are building the data science workforce of tomorrow.