CEO Monthly Sept

22 CEO MONTHLY / AUGUST 2017 , Codecademy and Amazon launch beginner coding courses for Alexa, as free online lessons teach anyone how to develop custom skills for the voice service Alexa Goes Corporate Codecademy, the largest platform teaching people technology skills to advance their careers, today announced it has collaborated with Amazon to launch courses for Alexa. The new, free series of courses teaches even beginners how to build their own Alexa capabilities, known as Alexa skills, for the voice service. The courses were co-created by Codecademy and Amazon to provide an online learning experience about Alexa skill- building, allowing Codecademy’s interactive learning platform to guide users to a meaningful result: an Alexa skill they can use on their own device. The courses are also accessible to beginners with no prior coding experience. The new suite of four courses, include: • Build Your First Alexa Skill: Learn how to create a voice- user interface using the Alexa Skills Kit. The result is a simple “Hello Codecademy” Alexa skill that you can engage with on your own Alexa-powered device. • Create Your Lambda Function: Learn how to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) to host a Lambda function that generates a response to an Alexa device. • Get User Input (Coming Soon): Use custom and built- in slots to allow your skill to get input from users. • Add Persistence to Your Skill (Coming Soon): Persist your session attributes using DynamoDB throughout and across sessions. After completing the courses, learners will be able to build an advanced Alexa skill that quizzes them about programming languages using the code they built. This outcome proves a working knowledge of creating custom Voice User Interfaces, scripting Lambda functions, and integrating databases such as DynamoDB. These skills give learners a comprehensive understanding for developing a custom Alexa skill-- valuable experience for the current job market that can be applied to working with many other AI and VUI applications. “You don’t need to be an expert in natural language understanding or speech recognition to build great voice experiences for Alexa,” said Rob Pulciani, Director, Amazon Alexa. “We’re excited to be working with Codecademy to make building Alexa skills even more accessible through their interactive learning platform.” “Working closely with Amazon to develop these courses allows us to create in-depth, meaningful education with immediate results,” said Zach Sims, co-founder and CEO of Codecademy. “We’re making sure everyone has the opportunity to learn how to develop for industry-leading technologies like Amazon Alexa, and also build their knowledge base with valuable experience that can advance their careers.” Codecademy makes it easy for anyone to learn technology skills through an accessible, engaging and flexible online learning experience. The company has more than 45 million learners globally and features hundreds of hours of paid and free content for people to learn how to code, making it the largest platform teaching people technology skills to advance their careers. Codecademy has raised a total of $43 million from investors including Union Square Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, Thrive Capital, Naspers, Yuri Milner and Richard Branson, most recently raising its $30 million Series C in July 2016. These latest offerings ensure that CEOs and their staff can rest assured that they are prepared to work with the technology of the future.