Microsoft's 'Skill for Jobs' initiative now offers free crash course on AI

The course is available in English and will launch soon in Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese. (Image: Microsoft)

Microsoft has announced a new AI skills initiative that will offer free introductory courses developed with LinkedIn. The course also has the first professional certification for Generative AI, a global grant challenge in collaboration with data.org, and provides access to free learning events and resources.

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The grant challenge set up in partnership with data.org, AI for good lab, and GitHub encourages the development of non-profit organisations dedicated to AI research or academic institutions that can offer courses to train workforces on Generative AI.

"This global grant will support organizations driving skilling and economic growth, especially those focusing on fair and community-led implementations of generative AI with historically marginalized populations around the world," wrote Kate Behncken, corporate vice president, Microsoft Philanthropies.

As part of LinkedIn's Skills for Jobs programme, the platform will offer online professional certification for Generative AI. The coursework will include introductory concepts, a brief explainer on responsible AI, and a career essentials certificate for completing it.

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The course is available in English and will launch soon in Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Simplified Chinese, and Japanese. The course will be free through 2025.

There will also be trainer toolkits for teachers and facilitators. It will be available as downloadable, bite-sized content and will cover practical use cases for AI.