On October 16, the Philippines Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and moocs.ph (Moocs PH Incorporated is a start-up company that aims to centralize and deliver Massive Open Online Courses (moocs) and learning opportunities for the Philippine market) entered into a partnership with Coursera, a leading online education platform. The partnership is part of a massive national government initiative to prepare citizens for a rapidly evolving workforce, as the country shifts towards a knowledge-based economy.
The Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (PCIEERD) under DOST (DOST-PCIEERD) launched an online Data Science scholarship through the partnership. The DOST-PCIEERD has always been involved in the support and development of Filipino human resources capabilities for emerging industries and technology sectors.
There are plans to add training tracks for cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and other emerging fields in the future. DOST has already received over 1,000 applicants for the training program, and will open a second cohort in January 2018 to meet the high demand.
Dr. CP David, Executive Director, DOST-PCIEERD said, "The DOST has embarked on a massive training program in the emerging fields involving Data, Connectivity and Intelligence. The fourth in the series of trainings in 2017 is an online program in partnership with Coursera and moocs.ph. From this training, we hope to jumpstart the careers of the next generation data scientists of the country."
"Coursera is excited to partner with such a forward-thinking government agency to address a critical gap in the country’s workforce potential," said Leila Makarechi, Coursera’s Head of Government Partnerships. "This program demonstrates the Philippine's government commitment to future-proofing their citizens and we look forward to growing the partnership over the coming years."
"Our partnership with Coursera ensures that the DOST scholars are given access to the highest quality Data Science content available from top tier educational institutions. With this project the DOST has taken a great step towards a more scalable and inclusive approach in upskilling the Philippine workforce – utilizing massive open online courses from top universities all over the world," said moocs.ph CEO, Allan de Venecia.