Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in New York announced that it has partnered with biotechnology company Moderna to launch the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Academy, an “innovative initiative that will bring to life an immersive learning experience for Moderna employees.”
In a press release, CMU and Moderna said the AI Academy is intended to educate and empower employees at all levels to identify and integrate AI and machine learning solutions into every Moderna system and process to bring mRNA medicines to patients.
“Moderna is advancing mRNA medicines at a breadth, speed and scale that is uncommon in the biopharmaceutical industry, and we attribute this speed in part to the incorporation of digital technologies in our company,” Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, said. “We believe AI is a key enabler of our ability to build the best version of Moderna now and into the future. This AI academy will enable us to make AI part of the company ways of working, part of our DNA. We look forward to driving this with Carnegie Mellon’s team.”
CMU’s Department of Statistics and Data Science, a part of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Tepper School of Business are collaborating with professors across the university to design and deliver Moderna’s AI Academy.
The press release said that the new program will deliver a tailored curriculum structured for working professionals focused on topics including data quality and data visualization, statistical thinking and models, machine learning algorithms and AI ethics. Moderna said that the “breadth and depth of content will help all employees think strategically about how to leverage AI in their specific job functions.”
As part of the academy, Moderna staff will connect directly with CMU faculty both in person and online using the Integrated Statistics Learning Environment (ISLE), an interactive educational platform developed at the university. U.S.
Moderna will launch the program this month with its first cohort of students and is targeting early 2022 for the full rollout.
