As a leading innovative tech company, Akamai is dedicated to combating workforce inequities and closing the industry’s skill gap. In June 2023, we scaled our Akamai Technical Academy (ATA) program from an in-person classroom format to 100% virtual learning with our partner Coursera in an effort to expand our global reach.
And expand it we did — and not just geographically. Making our professional certificate courses virtual helped sidestep the inequities that have long stood in the way of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education for underrepresented groups such as people with disabilities, women, and people of color. Now, looking back over the first year of Akamai Technical Academy on Coursera, we’re celebrating the impact it’s had.
From its start in 2016, Akamai Technical Academy has aimed to help shape a diverse and inclusive tech workforce. It was designed to give underrepresented students access to top-notch professional development with hands-on learning from Akamai experts.
For its first six years, ATA was an in-person program — six months of in-class training on STEM disciplines, followed by six months of contract work with Akamai project teams. But by 2022, our leadership team realized that to have the impact we really wanted from ATA, it needed to be scaled globally. And that meant going virtual.
Our partnership with Coursera removed the geographic barrier of classroom-based learning, opening up high-quality learning opportunities to students around the world. It enabled us to help build the talent pipeline the tech industry needs by implementing project-based learning and 21st-century pedagogy to teach critical thinking and problem-solving skills to the next generation of STEM professionals.
ATA’s success led to an invitation for our team to visit Harvard Business School and discuss ATA as a case study. At Harvard, our team explored Akamai’s need to scale ATA from an on-site program to a global virtual classroom to “build a robust and diverse global talent pipeline, as well as promote inclusion and diversity in the global technology industry” and meet both internal and industry demands for new talent.
And in December 2023, the Akamai Technical Academy program won the Women in Tech ERG & Corporate Initiative of the Year Award, which honors “outstanding efforts of employee resource groups and corporate initiatives that have made a significant impact in advancing the representation, growth, and success of women in the tech industry.”
As we reflect on this year’s revamped ATA program, we want to share some impressive milestones.
Akamai offers two self-paced, online professional certificate programs in networking engineering and customer consulting and support that provide learners with the foundational skills for entry-level tech roles. No prior tech experience or degrees are required for these certificates, which opens the door to a global population of nontraditional STEM talent.
Interested in a STEM education but don’t know where to start? Visit Akamai’s ATA website to learn more. And if you’re ready to gain real-world digital skills in a virtual learning environment, be sure to register for ATA.
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