Cloudera has announced the BASE (Big Analytics Skills Enablement) initiative – an industry-led ecosystem that is designed to groom a future workforce of data professionals.
Designed to strategically fill the skilled data professionals gap that the industry is currently facing, BASE pulls industry players and academic institutions together to equip more people with necessary skills in the areas of big data and analytics. The initiative also encompasses elements whereby trained data professionals will be matched to opportunities across sectors where their skills are required.
Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister for Foreign Affairs who is also the Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation Programme Office in Singapore, said: “Big data analytics is quickly transforming the way we live, work, play, mobilise and organise ourselves. We need our people to be equipped with capabilities to unleash the full potential of data, to glean new insights, and solve our urban challenges as we collectively build a Smart Nation together. It is encouraging that private corporations like Cloudera will help address the need by building relevant skillsets in this area.”
Currently, businesses like Dell, Intel, Red Hat, Microsoft and Talend have already stepped forward to join the BASE initiative in Singapore, committing to play a role in this collaborative ecosystem. Academic institutions like the National University of Singapore (NUS) and Institute of Technical Education (ITE) have also joined to provide training in data skills. Cloudera has also garnered support from Itel International to match data professionals who have completed their training to the right job vacancies.
Cloudera’s Chief Architect and the co-creator of Apache Hadoop, Doug Cutting commented: “At Cloudera we see a clear shortage of skilled data professionals across industries. We see an opportunity for us to play a catalyst role to bring various bodies into a collaborative effort, much like the open source community did when we were creating Hadoop. This collaborative innovation will help us bring new data-enabled talent into the market through skilled professionals who can leverage the tools and actualize data for business and the community.”
The BASE Initiative is also complementary to the Cloudera Academic Partnership (CAP) program, where the company partners with accredited, non-profit institutions around the world to help develop the next generation of data professionals.
Through CAP, Cloudera provides partner institutions with a complete, industry-standard Hadoop curriculum at no charge that can be incorporated into computer science and business analytics courses. Teaching staff and students of affiliated institutions also get access to software and discounted training to help accelerate the adoption of the Hadoop platform.
Currently, over 100 academic institutions around the globe are members of CAP. This include NUS in Singapore, which recently announced its participation in CAP.