The University of Louisville and IBM inked an agreement last month to establish the IBM Skills Academy, scheduled to open this fall at UL’s Center for Digital Transformation. The partnership is one more example of the accelerating trend of universities and corporations teaming up to provide skills-training for undergraduates considering possible employment in the technology sector.
The academy will focus on emerging digital fields like artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data science, blockchain, cloud technology, the Internet of Things and quantum computing. Through the partnership, valued at $5 million annually, UL faculty and students will have access to a front-edge curriculum, software, industry experts and other educational materials. IBM will train selected UL faculty in the content. The faculty, in turn, will instruct students who can earn IBM certificates and college credits. The program will be open to students in all fields, including the humanities and social sciences as well as the more obvious STEM and business majors.
Research will also be featured, illustrative of IBM’s Q Network and its formal collaborations with major universities for early stage computing research.
The UL/IBM partnership is a first of its kind, but it won’t be the last. According to the Louisville Courier Journal, Naguib Attia, IBM vice president for global programs, indicated that the company planned to open three more skills academies at U.S. universities, modeled on the UL prototype.
It’s not hard to understand why this partnership was formed and why expansion will occur. Like-purposed skills academies serve at least four aims, each mutually beneficial to their university and corporate partners.
A Boost for Economic Development. The academy helps address the continuing digital divide between plentiful technology jobs and the lack of skilled workers who can succeed in them. This is particularly important in small towns and regions like Kentucky where jobs in traditional industries are being lost even as positions in the tech sector either go unfilled or are developing more slowly than in competitor locations. Attracting new tech companies and retaining the ones already in place will be facilitated by increasing the number of technology workers locally available.
A Recruiting Advantage for Universities. As the number of high-school graduates decreases and the unemployment rate remains low, colleges are facing an increasingly competitive environment in which to maintain their enrollments. Supplementing traditional majors with boot-camp style technology skills-training offers a “two-for-one” marketing strategy for colleges attempting to recover or ramp up enrollment.
A Source of Talent for Companies. Companies invest millions of dollars searching for talented employees, and they commit millions more in training workers in the critical skills necessary for job success and company progress. Skills academies like the UL/IBM initiative will give the employer partner a head start – and a smart start - on both tasks. At $5 million dollars, the academy is likely to be an early-courtship bargain, a boost to a better bottom line.
A Combined Purpose for Education. College students express two major motives for pursuing their education – to prepare themselves for a good job and to gain knowledge so they are broadly prepared for a successful life. Although job preparation is currently the predominant aim among collegians, institutions that find ways to provide students with both purposes will be the most likely to thrive. As Brandon Busteed observed in an earlier Forbes post, it’s important to end the either/or dichotomy about the purpose of college and recognize that preparing for good careers can and should also serve broader purposes.
The IBM Skills Academy at the University of Louisville offers one path to help synergize the two main purposes of college. Students can acquire markegtable technology skills at the same time they benefit from the broader education that good universities provide. It's a shrewd idea and it's sure to grow.
