AI is everywhere. From autonomous machines in industrial manufacturing to healthcare procedures in the fight against COVID-19, developers are using AI to advance productivity, reliability and safety across industries.
The Emerging Jobs Report 2020 from LinkedIn points out that AI, data science and robotics roles are proliferating across nearly every industry. AI specialist is the No. 1 job by annual hiring growth, at 74 percent, followed by robotics engineer with 40 percent annual growth.
Companies are realizing there aren’t enough researchers, data scientists and engineers with the level of technical expertise needed to meet demand. Upskilling in AI and robotics is critical to success for organizations in IT, retail, logistics, higher education, consumer electronics and beyond.
Learning to develop AI and deep-learning applications requires real-world skills only available through hands-on experience. That’s why NVIDIA launched its free Jetson AI Certification program during last month’s GPU Technology Conference.
The launch was timed with the release of the Jetson Nano 2GB Developer Kit, which, at only $59, makes sophisticated AI applications more possible for everyone. The self-paced courses comprise tutorials and video walkthroughs that cover everything from the fundamentals of training and inference to practical applications in autonomous robotics like object following and collision avoidance.
Two AI certification tracks are available as part of the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute for educators, students and engineers looking to reskill:
- Jetson AI Specialist: This certification can be completed by anyone to demonstrate mastery of Jetson and AI concepts using a hands-on, project-based assessment.
- Jetson AI Ambassador: This certification is for educators and leaders at robotics institutions and recognizes competency in teaching AI on Jetson using a project-based assessment including an interview with the NVIDIA team.
Kudos to the New Class of AI Specialists
The first batch of Jetson AI Specialists from around the world were granted certification this month based on their demonstrated competency in AI skills, as well as functional and performance validation of their projects.
Below is some feedback the new specialists shared about their experience, including why they think certification is important, how they plan to use it in future, and advice for peers interested in learning and teaching AI.
Paul DeCarlo, principal cloud advocate and manager for IoT Advocacy at Microsoft and adjunct professor at the University of Houston, USA, said: “I would highly suggest this certification for anyone interested in working with applied AI, especially if you have the desire to share the learnings with others. Whether you are currently employed and seeking new skills to share with your team or an educator looking to outfit students with experience in a bleeding-edge field to prepare them for the jobs of tomorrow, the certification process will prepare you to demonstrate working AI solutions and challenge you to then exercise your newly gained capabilities to create AI projects of your own.”
Goran Vuksic, technical manager at Stratiteq, Sweden, said: “My advice is to learn what the Jetson Nano is capable of, be creative to start your own project, explore and have fun! The Jetson AI Fundamentals course is highly recommended as a great learning resource for anyone who is starting with Jetson or wants to extend their knowledge. I always try to achieve certification as it motivates me to learn specific things in detail and proves that I really understood the concepts.”
Nitin Rai, AI application developer at SmartCow, India, said: “The AI Fundamentals course is a very well summarized collection of videos, really helpful both for understanding the kind of problems that can be solved with the help of AI and how the NVIDIA ecosystem fits in place to do quick prototyping. This AI Specialist certification helps to affirm understanding about a range of concepts like how an AI pipeline works, how to optimize code to go from development to production, tight integration of multiple models and services to achieve greater results in less time, and a lot more.”
Dohyeong Kim, student at Kyungpook National University, South Korea, said: “The course is especially useful to beginners familiarizing themselves with deep learning because most of the content consists of GUI rather than terminal. AI certification is important because even though you may have experience with Jetson, sometimes it alone is not enough when looking for jobs in specific fields.”
Sang Yuanyuan, teacher and maker at Beijing Middle School No. 109, China, said: “The course content is suitable for beginners in AI and the combination with the certification also promotes motivation. My advice to anyone learning AI is to share and collaborate with others, including the NVIDIA Jetson community, and compete with yourself!”
Wei-Chih (Joe) Lin, project engineer at iCShop, Taiwan, said: “Certification is a great way to turn learning into an earned achievement and designates the recipient as competent in the associated field of study especially if you want to share with potential employers, colleagues or the world at large. Since my job is to promote robotics and AI in educational institutions from primary school to college, this certificate will let more people discover my teaching methods: learn the basics from the fundamentals and develop understanding through theory and implementation; to allow the students to use their knowledge to improve their life or career.”
Muhammad Uzair Khattak, research assistant at SIGMA and TUKL Deep-Learning Lab, SEECS, NUST, Pakistan, said: “Gaining certification enhances my technical profile and I can now deliver workshops and teach AI/DL technologies to my fellows with more confidence. The Jetson Nano 2GB is the perfect choice when it comes to tight budgets and the need for good computing resources and the active Jetson community projects page and technical support make it unique and easier to use.”
Kazuyuki Takahashi, AI software/robotics engineer at Forex Robotics Co., Ltd. Japan, said: “The Jetson AI Fundamentals course provided great content about image-related machine learning. AI technology has accelerated over the past year or two due to price reductions and speedups for AI edge devices such as the Jetson Nano and Nano 2GB. I highly recommend getting certified and encourage everyone to work together to create open source projects that improve the world using NVIDIA Jetson!”
Ahmet Furkan Demir, student at Necmettin Erbakan University, Turkey, said: “I find all of NVIDIA’s courses useful and it makes me happy to do lab lessons with powerful GPUs. This is an important certification for me to receive from a technology leader like NVIDIA. I plan to use this certificate and continue to apply my AI knowledge in my career and business life.”
Mario Tovar, Ph.D. student at IER-UNAM, Mexico, said: “I’m passionate about sustainability, very interested in AI applications for intelligent energy management tasks and helping integrate renewable intermittent energy into smart grids. My advice for anyone interested in AI is to get certified because it is a hands-on opportunity to apply deep learning techniques to resolve day to day problems facing us globally. I can even envision young children with two or five years getting AI courses with the Jetson Nano. I look forward to doing the next AI Ambassador certification so I can teach AI using the Jetson platform.”
Learn More About the Jetson Certification Program
The Jetson Nano 2GB developer kit and the rest of the Jetson platform offer energy-efficient, high-performance AI at the edge for education, robotics applications and the DIY community.
Its impact is already being felt in telemedicine, self-driving vehicles, smart energy systems, anomaly detection in manufacturing lines, retail scenarios and elsewhere.
Learn more about the Jetson Nano 2GB and the Jetson AI certification program. And reach out to the Jetson developer community for help on how AI can aid your next project.
* Note: Name used in the image is for illustrative purposes only.