SoftBank and Correlation One launch AI & data science training program for Latam

Contxto – If you’ve ever been interested in learning more about artificial intelligence (AI) and data science, SoftBank’s latest project in Latin America may be right up your alley.

The Japanese venture capital (VC) firm, in conjunction with tech company Correlation One, released Data Science for All (DS4A)—a learning platform—for Latam’s tech talent this week. 

Employees from SoftBank’s portfolio companies, as well as anyone with strong science, tech, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-related backgrounds are welcome to apply for this 10-week program. 

Learn more about costs, what SoftBank’s up to with all of this, and more below.

But don’t dawdle too much, registration ends on February 21.

What to expect from the learning platform

Classes are taught on Fridays and Saturdays in English. During the program, students gain in-depth knowledge on data science and AI via practical business cases and group projects. 

Natesh Pillai of Harvard University is the primary instructor and is joined by other experts from MIT and Stanford. Pillai will teach via live streaming from São Paulo. Meanwhile, teaching assistants will be available at the in-person training sites in Mexico City, Bogotá, and Buenos Aires.  

If participants complete the necessary coursework, they’re eligible to receive a certification at the end of the program in May.

Moreover, participants also have access to job networking opportunities as they work alongside tech pros from some of SoftBank’s startups. 

Covering the cost

Note this isn’t a free course. There are three ways to make payment:

• Via an Income Share Agreement (ISA), where you make no up-front payment until you land a job with a high-enough salary. After which, you make monthly payments of 15 percent of your wages. Payments end after 30 months or once you pay US$7,500 (whichever happens first).
• Via corporate sponsorship. An option under which your employer pays US$5,000.
• Pay US$5,000 upfront or divided into 24 monthly installments.

If the price tag is too high, you can apply for a merit-based scholarship.

SoftBank bets on data science

The Government of Bogotá and Correlation One had previously cooperated for DS4A in Colombia in 2019. Back then, employees from Rappi and Amazon participated. 

And this recent announcement suggests it yielded positive results that were encouraging enough for organizers to want to scale it to further parts of Latin America with SoftBank’s help.

It’s also an opportunity for its portfolio companies to recruit talent through direct collaboration with potential candidates. Certainly their hard and soft skills will be put to the test.

DS4A also unveils the VC’s and its startups’ interest in machine learning for future developments. Not to mention build the region’s AI-ecosystem.

For more information, check out their brochure here. Or you can sign up here.

Wanna hear more? We recommend you listen to the following podcast episode: Netflix, SoftBank y AWS experimentan con Latinoamérica. You can find the time stamp available in the description.

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-ML