A Commitment to Training: Learning Pathways to Real-world Jobs with AWS Educate

At the AWS Public Sector Summit in Brussels, we announced our commitment to bridge the European skills gap. Today at the AWS Public Sector Summit in Washington, D.C., Teresa Carlson, VP of Worldwide Public Sector at Amazon Web Services, shared more about AWS’s global commitment to training the next generation of builders.

Programs like AWS Educate provide students with the resources and tools needed to accelerate cloud-related learning endeavors. AWS Educate is available to students ages 14 and up in most countries around the world as well as U.S. veterans and their spouses. Additionally, the AWS Educate program resources have been translated into Spanish and Portuguese, expanding the number of students and educators globally who can use its free tools, resources, and AWS Promotional Credits to gain cloud computing skills and knowledge.

Updates to the AWS Educate Program – New Pathways and Badges

In the last year, AWS Educate has released the Cybersecurity Pathway and the Machine Learning Pathway, as well as several badges including the recently launched Alexa Badge and the Cloud Literacy Badge.

AWS Educate Pathways provide students with access to credits, training, and the option to choose their desired cloud careers. In each pathway, participants complete knowledge checks, lab exercises, and projects to practice and test their knowledge and earn an AWS Educate Certificate of Completion. Pathways include access to AWS services and over 30 hours of engaging resources.

After completing a pathway and earning badges, users can search job requisitions that match their selected job family and skillset, and apply for positions directly in the Job Board.

Success with the Job Board

Building upon last year’s launch of the AWS Educate Job Board, the program will continue to expand its efforts to matching students with jobs in the cloud computing and tech sector. Read on for some of the real-life successes coming out of AWS Educate:

• Alfredo Colon is an AWS Educate member from Puerto Rico with no previous cloud experience. He lost his job because of Hurricane Maria and moved to Orlando, FL to rebuild. He has completed 20+ career pathways with AWS Educate and got an interview with Universal Studios Orlando, where he was able to demonstrate competence in AWS services and cloud knowledge to land a job as a DevOps Engineer.
• Nelson Le was curious about the mechanics of a VCR early on and knew technology was in his future. He got involved with AWS Educate through GitHub, and has secured a position as a Software Development Engineer intern at Amazon.com in East Palo Alto.
• And Bryan Landes, a notable Army Veteran, found AWS Educate on his own as he searched for AWS learning resources in preparation to launch his app. He leveraged the career pathways to learn about jobs in the cloud. He is now part of the most recent cohort of the Veteran Apprenticeship program in partnership with Northern Virginia Community College, targeting a Solutions Architect position.

AWS Educate has collaborated with other organizations, including Udacity, Amazon Future Engineer, and Opportunity@Work to increase access to the program. Learn more about AWS Educate.