Build your future-gazing skills
How to keep up with the latest tech innovations.
EVEN KEEPING UP with the basics is hard given tech’s pace of change, but it’s possible to stay ahead thanks to online courses. There are hours of classes, many for free, from universities around the world and digital educators such as Udacity, Coursera and FutureLearn. So there’s no excuse not to learn how to build the future, whether it’s machine learning, blockchain or automated cars.
Artificial intelligence
AI is one of the hottest, most overhyped technologies in years, but many people don’t know their neural networks from their machine learning. If you want to get up to speed with the basics, Helsinki University in Finland offers a free online course to anyone. The aim is for 1% of the Finnish population to give it a go – that’s apparently 54,000 people – to help spark an AI revolution in the Nordic nation, but the rest of us can use it to earn a LinkedIn certificate. It should take about six weeks to finish – no pun intended – the coursework. Sign up at elementsofai.com.
Driverless cars
Plenty of people want to ride in self-driving cars, but if you fancy building automated vehicles then we have good news: online tech school Udacity offers a “nanodegree” in self-driving engineering. Designed alongside driverless leaders such as Uber and Nvidia, students will be taught about computer vision, deep learning, using sensors to control the cars, and navigation. The intro to self-driving cars, which teaches the essentials to anyone with “minimal” programming experience, costs €800 for a four-month term, while the advanced engineering course is €2,400 for three terms of three months each.If your head is in teh clouds, there’s also a flying car course (think drones). For the more grounded technology students, there are plenty of practical free short courses, too. Head to eu.udacity.com/ nanodegree for more information.
Bitcoin, cryptocurrency and blockchain
Still can’t wrap your head around Bitcoin? You’re not alone. But there’s help from a wide variety of courses. On online course site Coursera, Princeton University offers a free course focusing on Bitcoin ( coursera.org/learn/ cryptocurrency), but the University of Nicosia takes things a step further: it provides an entire degree in digital currency. Perhaps unsurprisingly, your academic certificate is held on a blockchain, and you can pay tuition in Bitcoin. The university also offers a free MOOC — massively open online course — for beginners if you’re just looking for an introduction to the subject. Register at digitalcurrency.unic.ac.cy.
Robotics
Want to build your own Terminator, but not sure where to start? Head over to FutureLearn, a spin off from the Open University, itself a handy resource for online education. Alongside courses on Big Data, digital healthcare and the digital economy, the Queensland University of Technology offers three short courses on “Introducing Robotics” ( futurelearn.com/programs/ robotics), where you’ll learn how to build a robot arm, how robots will fit into society, and how to make machines move – please don’t skip that middle module. The courses are free, lasting between three to seven weeks. You can upgrade for £62 to get a certificate of achievement and other perks, and follow up your robot arm building with a similar set of courses on robotic vision ( futurelearn.com/ programs/robotic-vision).
Ethics
The future of tech isn’t all about development and engineering. One area that’s long been missing from the industry is ethics – but there are plenty of online courses to help anyone lacking a moral compass shore up their skills. We’re looking at you, Mark Zuckerberg. EdX ( edx.org) has a wide range of tech and business courses from top universities, including a free seven-week module on Responsible Innovation from the University of Delft ( pcpro. link/287eth), covering risk analysis to robotics.