Creating Tomorrow’s Big Data Workforce

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In an economy where jobs are still scarce, it’s good to hear that the demand for skilled workers in Big Data is on the rise.

Nationwide, hiring slowed significantly in March with employers adding only 88,000 jobs, down from an average of 220,000 from November through February, according to a story in U.S. News. But in certain sectors, there are jobs that are going unfulfilled.

Big Data is one of those sectors.  According to Cloudera, as Hadoop continues to make inroads into the enterprise, there is a rapidly growing need for skilled data workers.  So, the company has decided to help develop this talent pool starting at the source – in the educational system.

This week Cloudera launched the Cloudera Academic Partnership (CAP), a program to equip leading universities around the world with the curriculum and training to offer Big Data courses for engineering and analytics students.

There is no question that demand for qualified Big Data professionals is increasing rapidly, while a shortage of trained workers is creating a major skills gap in the marketplace. The next generation of developers, administrators, and analysts can become the first to include new platforms like Hadoop alongside traditional databases and business intelligence tools,” said Ben Woo, managing director at Neuralytix Inc. “However, colleges and universities have historically not had the necessary resources to include these advance data technologies in their curricula, with the burden falling on employers to find existing certified professionals among the short market supply or retrain their employees to keep pace with technology. It is intelligent of Cloudera to foster development of this future workforce early and at the source, and it is a great service to professors and students around the world. The Cloudera Academic Partnership is the first of its kind, and the company is aggressively leading the charge in Hadoop education and innovation.”

The CAP program provides a number of benefits, including allowing teachers and students affiliated with CAP program institutions to freely download Cloudera training materials; deep discounts on other training materials developed by Cloudera University; and access to a variety of support services such as classroom tools, instructor forums, and the world’s largest Hadoop knowledge base.

CAP’s seven charter members include:

  • Auburn University (Alabama)
  • California State University, Los Angeles (California)
  • Harvard University: Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (Massachusetts)
  • Purdue University (Indiana)
  • San Jose State University (California)
  • Technische Universität Berlin (Germany)
  • The University of Stavanger (Norway)

Educational institutions interested in the program can request an application. The CAP program also has more information online.

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