RMIT Online partners with Udacity to launch tech skills courses

RMIT Online has partnered with Silicon Valley-based education provider Udacity to launch a series of online courses focused on bridging the tech skills gap.

The partnership with Udacity, which has worked with the likes of Google and Facebook, has seen the launch of four new courses: Introduction to Self-Driving Cars, AI Programming with Python, Robotics Software Engineering, and Front-End Web Developer.

Helen Souness, CEO of RMIT Online, said the organisation was excited to collaborate with Udacity to bring “the Silicon Valley mindset” to Australia.

“Disruptive changes to business models will have a profound impact on the employment landscape over the coming years. At RMIT Online, we are working to address these skills gaps and companies and individuals must make a concerted effort to plan and upskill to meet the demands of the changing workforce,” Souness said.

The courses will be supported by local industry partners, including GitHub, Culture Amp, and Holden.

Brett Vivian, GM Holden executive director of engineering, said, “We cannot ignore the role that autonomous vehicles will play in the future of transport and mobility. We’re already seeing this revolution unfold across the world, with industry leaders investing heavily in talent skilled in self-driving car technology.

“We are thrilled to join RMIT and Udacity in driving innovation in an area to which we are so committed. On the path towards a driverless future – with safer roads and fewer crashes – we see education as critical to building the technical know-how and developing the soft skills beyond automotive engineering experience that will drive us to the forefront of the industry.”

The intro to self-driving cars course will teach students how to use machines to teach computers to identify images programmatically, how to write code for self-driving cars, and how to plan and visualise their trajectory.

The front-end developer course, meanwhile, will see students learn skills including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript as they complete five projects with help from industry mentors, while the AI programming with Python course aims to give students a foundation in fields such as neural networks, deep learning, and PyTorch.

Students taking the robotics software engineering course will learn skills including perception, localisation, path planning, deep learning, and control using the Robot Operating System framework.

The courses, which can earn students credits towards a degree, will be ‘piloted’ for $1,280 each.

They are the latest to launch from RMIT Online, which in August launched two new blockchain-focused courses in partnership with Accenture and Stone and Chalk.

Image: Helen Souness. Source: Supplied.