Saint Peter’s teams up with IBM for Skills Academy

    Saint Peter’s University said this week that its Frank J. Guarini School of Business is partnering with IBM to develop an IBM Skills Academy on the Jersey City campus.

    The IBM Skills Academy is a training and certification program for academia, helping university faculty provide students with technology skills that give them an advantage in the job market.

    Courses will start in the fall 2020 trimester, for graduate students and undergrads in accelerated programs. The first two classes include Enterprise Design Thinking and AI for Managers. Future courses will include Internet of Things for Managers and Quantum Computing for Managers.

    “The areas of artificial intelligence, data science, enterprise design and cloud computing are becoming critically important in countless fields of study,” Joseph Gilkey, an associate professor, chair of the Business Administration Department and director of the MBA program, said in a prepared statement. “We want to ensure that Saint Peter’s graduates not only have a desirable skill set on paper, but also are educated in the latest digital technologies, enabling them to innovate in their respective careers.”

    IBM is training Saint Peter’s faculty on the curriculum, and noted that Gilkey and Gulhan Bizel, a visiting professor at the Guarini School, were the first instructors in company history to be awarded the Enterprise Design Thinking Instructor Badge.