Rolls-Royce and Code First Girls launch free artificial intelligence course

Following the partnership with Code First Girls, Rolls-Royce is hosting a free Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on artificial intelligence and machine learning that is open to anyone. With record subscriptions of over 500 people, the one-hour MooC launches on March 25th and follows on from The importance of diversity in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning’ podcast released earlier in March (Spotify​, Apple​).

Manisha Mistry, Portfolio Director, Digital Culture and Collaborations at Rolls-Royce, said: “This MOOC is a key element of our partnership with Code First Girls and a further indication of our journey at Rolls-Royce to become the world’s leading industrial technology. Diversity and inclusion are key to that and part of our work with Code First Girls is to ensure opportunities are available to women who want to get into tech.

“This course will give participants a brilliant introductory view of Artificial Intelligence and its importance in organisations such as Rolls-Royce. Just as importantly, they’ll also get access to our R2 Data Labs community to collaborate, practice and share ideas as they learn.”

R2 Data Labs has also just taken on three interns as a result of the Code First Girls partnership. Rebecca Hallows, Hanan Moalin and Isabel Scavetta have all joined from non-technical backgrounds having crossed over into tech from finance, engineering or humanities studies. 

Jonathan Hewitt, Growth and Marketing Manager, Code First Girls, said: "Rolls-Royce's commitment to an inclusive and diverse workforce, coupled with its ethical commitment to technological innovation in next-generation manufacturing and AI applications make it an ideal partner for Code First Girls. 

“We are excited to have Rolls-Royce onboard, among over a dozen visionary tech companies, to deliver coding education and career opportunities to women across the world. Together, we will teach 40,000 women to code by the end of 2021, and I'm sure we will achieve many further milestones in the years to come."

Participants can register for the machine learning and artificial intelligence course here. It builds on the free-to-access Helping You Prepare programme run by Rolls-Royce and its partners, which launched in May 2020 and has seen more than 30,000 subscribers take advantage of the world-class digital training that Rolls-Royce uses for its own digital transformation.