Blockchain Course Offered By Coursera And ConsenSysbr>
Founded by Stanford professors Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller, Coursera works with universities and other organizations to offer online courses, specializations, and degrees in a variety of subjects, such as engineering, humanities, medicine, biology, social sciences, mathematics, business, computer science, digital marketing, data science, and others. In 2015, Coursera partnered with Princeton University to offer a free course on bitcoin and cryptocurrency technologies.
ConsenSys is a blockchain software technology company founded by Joseph Lubin. It is developing a variety of applications which operate on the global distributed computing platform. The company is also keen to be the beacon for ethereum education by revolutionizing education through blockchain technology. Last year, ConsenSys Academy’s inaugural Developer Program graduated 55 students, 35 of whom joined ConsenSys as employees.
The two companies are partnering to launch a foundational course titled Blockchain: Foundations and Use Cases. The course is for students who simply want to know more about blockchain, including the foundational concepts of blockchain and decentralization as well as cryptography and consensus mechanisms. The course cost $99 and takes around 10 hours in total to complete over a period of five weeks. Learners will earn a certificate from ConsenSys Academy after completing the course.
Coursera said that it has seen an increase in demand among students to gain the knowledge and skills needed for a career in the blockchain industry.
“We’re seeing growing interest among our learners, both from those seeking a career in blockchain, to also those who want to gain foundational knowledge of the technology as it applies to their industry — it’s the reason why these topics have broken into the top 10 of Coursera’s most popular courses,” said Coursera VP of Enterprise Leah Belsky in a statement.
According to a recent study conducted by crypto exchange Coinbase, 42 percent of the world’s top 50 universities have at least one class on cryptocurrencies or blockchain.
Benedikt Bunz, a doctoral student at Stanford, said the “tremendous excitement” around blockchain and cryptocurrency courses is due to the high demand for blockchain experts.
“If you’re an expert in cryptocurrencies and cryptography you’ll have a difficult time not finding a job,” Bunz said.