Cloudera teams with leading universities

Cloudera has announced the launch of the Cloudera Academic Partnership (CAP), a global program designed to equip leading universities around the world with curriculum and training to offer comprehensive Big Data courses for engineering and analytics students. As Hadoop adoption continues to proliferate in the enterprise, demand for skilled data workers is on the rise. Cloudera developed the CAP program to address the shortage of qualified data professionals and support the development of a skilled workforce capable of accelerating the new data economy.

  • Monday, 22nd April 2013 Posted 11 years ago in by Phil Alsop

"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."

How the CAP Program Works
Professors and students affiliated with CAP program institutions can freely download a wide selection of Cloudera's industry-leading training materials and receive discounts on all Cloudera Certification exams. Professors also qualify for deep discounts on Cloudera University training delivered by Cloudera's team of expert Hadoop instructors, and benefit from up-to-date curricula, classroom tools, instructor forums, dedicated program support, and the world's largest Hadoop knowledgebase.

Cloudera Education Software License Program
Accredited, non-profit academic institutions also can take advantage of the more robust features of Cloudera's software suite through a special University License. CAP members have free access to Cloudera Manager Enterprise Edition for 12 months to support data-intensive testing, development, and research. In conjunction with Cloudera's industry-leading open-source CDH platform, the University License provides CAP participants with the tools needed to achieve major breakthroughs in Big Data.

CAP Global Charter Members
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 Universitat Berlin (Germany)
· The University of Stavanger (Norway)
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CAP Program Member Testimonials: San Jose State University, Auburn University, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard University

San Jose State University
Founded in 1857, San Jose State University (SJSU) is located in the thick of the Silicon Valley. With 30,500 students, it is the valley's largest institution of higher learning. Its Department of Computer Science first offered its "Introduction to Big Data" course last year, in an effort to meet the market demands for qualified engineers and analysts working on massive data sets. SJSU was the first university to adopt the CAP program, with the help of Peter Zadrozny, a Big Data lecturer with over 30 years of experience in technical and executive roles.

"Big Data is one of the hottest technology segments right now. Everybody is at least talking about Big Data, and with San Jose State being in the heart of Silicon Valley, we are excited to pioneer this work in the academic realm. This would not have been possible without Cloudera," said Peter Zadrozny, Big Data instructor at San Jose State University. "I designed the course with the employer in mind. Students will have cleared the bulk of the learning curve by going through this course. When graduates seek employment, they will have a three- to six-month productivity jump on other candidates. I'm especially pleased that this training gets students hired and working creatively with data."

Zadrozny noted that enrollment for the CAP course has been strong and student response has been "very positive."

"The comprehensive CAP course materials enable professors to spend less time on lesson planning and more time with students, or on independent research," he added.