Tennessee Board of Regents, Amazon Web Services, Inc. and the Tennessee Higher Education Commission recently announced a collaborative effort to train, upskill and certify 5,000 Tennesseans in cloud computing by 2025. Through this statewide initiative, technical training and education mapped to in-demand skills will be available from participating public community and technical colleges across Tennessee, including Columbia State Community College.

“I’m delighted that AWS — Amazon’s cloud computing business — is partnering with our community and technical colleges to provide this opportunity for Tennesseans – an opportunity to learn cloud computing skills for great careers in the state’s growing tech sector,” Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said. “Thanks to AWS for providing the resources to our colleges at no cost.”

TBR will work with the AWS Academy program to provide the colleges with no-cost, ready-to-teach, cloud computing curricula that prepares students for industry-recognized AWS Certifications and in-demand cloud-related jobs. Educators at participating institutions will have access to instructor training and a limited number of AWS Certification exams at no cost as they qualify to become AWS Academy accredited educators. Students can also access self-paced online training courses and labs from AWS.

“The future is now with cloud computing, and this initiative will enable Tennesseans to learn the skills they need for new careers in this field or to better perform in their existing information technology work,” said TBR Chancellor Flora W. Tydings. “Although AWS is providing much of the resources for this initiative, the program’s graduates will be able to work anywhere cloud computing skills are in demand. We’re grateful to AWS for this generous support.”

This collaborative effort between an industry leader and educational institutions is critical because it ensures that students will be trained for actual industry needs and by trained instructors skilled in teaching the latest technical skills that will help learners earn industry certifications. Certifying 5,000 students by 2025 is a short-term target for the ongoing initiative.

“THEC is proud to support increased access to high quality industry certifications that can not only help students get in-demand jobs, but also aid in their pursuits of higher education credentials,” said Dr. Emily House, executive director at Tennessee Higher Education Commission. “This collaboration between AWS and TBR is vital to building a strong workforce in Tennessee, and many students across the state will benefit from this work.”

AWS education programs will be offered initially at 12 Tennessee community colleges and 15 Tennessee Colleges of Applied Technology spanning the state. In Columbia State’s partnership with the AWS academy, students will be trained in cloud computing and prepared for industry recognized AWS certifications and cloud-related careers. Instructors will be able to seek technical training in parallel to program development from AWS Academy. Columbia State also plans to add cloud computing into a new or existing program of study in the future.

“Demand for cloud tech talent in greater Nashville is expected to double in the next several years,” said Deepa Janakiraman, Columbia State director of CITC partnerships and associate professor of computer information systems. “This partnership will provide direction for graduating students with the skills that are current and trending in the workplace. We hope that this initiative will close the skills gap that exists between colleges and the workforce.”

This commitment to providing technical skills training and education across the state is designed to fill in-demand cloud computing jobs throughout Tennessee. This includes available jobs from organizations across various sectors in roles such as software development, cloud architecture, data science, cybersecurity, cloud support engineers, and more.

“We are excited to see Tennessee’s burgeoning tech sector across the state and right here in Nashville,” said Kim Majerus, vice president, US education, state and local government at AWS. “With an Amazon corporate office in Nashville serving as a Center of Operational Excellence, our collaboration with TBR will help prepare learners to pursue tech jobs at our company and with local organizations. We are committed to working with employers in the state of Tennessee to bolster their technical talent pipeline, so they can continue to innovate in the state.”

To learn more about TBR’s role in this new collaboration and participating colleges, visit https://www.tbr.edu/academics/tbr-amazon-web-services-aws-certification-partnership.