There has never been a better time to learn--not only is the web awash with educational platforms, but if you're still working from home, it's an easy way to make productive use of your nonexistent "commute" time. Websites such as Udemy, FutureLearn, EdX, and Coursera offer practical, skills-based courses for free or very low cost, with some carrying actual qualifications for an additional charge; some are taught in collaboration with universities, while others are from independent experts. LinkedIn and Alison have short courses on everything from marketing to the basics of Instagram, and sites such as Masterclass and Skillshare get the best of the best to teach everything from acting to writing, with one-off course fees or subscriptions starting from $15 a month. You may not have to go it alone, either: If there's a course that could help in your job, an employer might pay for it. Some employers offer a subscription to one of the above services or a catalog of such classes as a benefit; in that case, it's a smart move for HR or team leaders to curate a selection that is relevant and high quality in order to help employees get started without feeling overwhelmed.

This is a fast-changing and critical time for Earth Observation (EO), especially for those involved in its use for climate and meteorology. On this course, you'll get a comprehensive overview of the Copernicus Programme and the wealth of EO data it provides, as well as how AI and ML are transforming the interpretation of EO data. You'll learn about the Copernicus data and services and the massive amounts of Earth observation data that are collected every day from space, covering the oceans, land, atmosphere and, over longer periods, the climate. You'll then learn basic AI and ML concepts and types, exploring how they have transformed many aspects of the EO'value chain'. This includes automatic feature extraction, new ways of processing very large data sets, and the development of new products and services.

At FutureLearn we work in short sprints & regularly share, reflect on and iterate on our work. This helps us focus on shipping small, iterative changes and responding quickly to changing business or user needs. We care about work/life balance and supporting learning at work. The Data Platform Team builds and maintains tooling and infrastructure that supports decision making processes across the business and enables product improvements by providing a complete and consistent view of our business data. Our tech stack consists of an ETL process written in Ruby and managed by Airflow which sources data from our production database (MySQL), our email provider (Sendgrid), application logs, and other operational data sources.

Offered through a collaboration with Microsoft, this microcredential will teach you the fundamentals of AI and provide you with the skills to design and build an AI solution using Microsoft Azure. We will prepare you for the Microsoft Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900) and Microsoft Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-100) certification; the cost of this microcredential includes vouchers for those exams. Artificial intelligence is one of the key drivers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Accordingly, artificial intelligence skills are frequently listed among the most in-demand workplace skills in the current and future job market, as organisations seek to harness AI to revolutionise their operations. While in-demand tech skills are changing, employers are faced with a shortfall of qualified candidates.

Last month's announcement by Amazon that it plans to spend $700 million (£569 million) over six years to retrain a third of its US workforce was eye-catching for many reasons. One was the price tag: even for the world's second most valuable company, spending three-quarters of a billion dollars over half a decade to retrain 100,000 workers is a huge undertaking. Also noteworthy was the firm's reasoning. Amazon explicitly attributed its move to the rise of automation, machine learning and other technology: the so-called fourth industrial revolution. There was a sense that the pioneer of online retailing, famed for its use of automation, was merely an early accepter of an inescapable truth that all employers will soon have to face: that the skills of their existing workforces will no longer have any market value as their old roles are taken by machines and new roles are created. The company reportedly has 20,000 current vacancies. But, for universities, the most conspicuous aspect of the announcement may well have been their omission from it.