Amazon makes machine learning courses free for developers

Amazon has made its machine learning educational courses available to all developers through AWS, the company has announced. These are the same courses used to train Amazon's own engineers, giving developers a unique opportunity to learn to new skills and companies a way to boost their employees' knowledge. The courses are offered as part of the AWS Training and Certification Machine Learning program.

According to Amazon, which announced the new offerings today, the courses are all self-paced and self-service — they're made available digitally and comprise more than 45 hours of course work, labs, and videos. Amazon says the courses target data platform engineers, developers, data scientists, and business professionals.

Amazon explains that each of its machine learning courses open with the fundamentals, then builds upon them using a variety of examples and labs, including real-world problems that Amazon has had to solve over the years. The company provides examples of the work, which includes everything from optimizing delivery routes to predicting a customer's gift wrapping eligibility.

The courses also teach students how to get started on various AWS machine learning services, including Lex, Polly, Rekognition, SageMaker, and more. For students who are serious about mastering the work, such as for a promotion or resume, Amazon has also launched its new AWS Certification for Machine Learning, which is a speciality that includes an exam.

Students only have to pay if they plan to use labs and take exams, otherwise the courses can be accessed for free here. Users will need an AWS account to sign into the course. Amazon keeps a list of its AWS courses in its Learning Library.