REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--C3.ai, a leading enterprise AI software provider for accelerating digital transformation, today announced a relationship with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to provide eligible C3.ai employees with a fully reimbursed professional Master of Computer Science (MCS) degree focused on data science.
Upon successful completion of Illinois’ MCS degree, a C3.ai employee will receive a 15 percent salary increase, a $25,000 cash bonus, and an additional C3.ai incentive stock option equity award. The degree program is part of C3.ai’s ongoing support of employees’ skills development. Employees who apply and are admitted by the University of Illinois to its rigorous program will have access to the MCS degree program on the Coursera platform.
“At C3.ai, we are assembling a team of inquisitive self-learners, motivated and properly trained to solve some of the world’s most challenging technology problems,” said Thomas M. Siebel, C3.ai CEO. “This program further enables our employees’ success by encouraging them to further develop their computer science and AI expertise at one of the world’s leading universities.”
“The fact is the best engineers, computer scientists, and other technical professionals need to continuously grow and develop their skills throughout their careers,” said Andreas Cangellaris, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Provost. “We are very pleased that they have chosen to put their confidence in us and the education we provide.”
Illinois’ Department of Computer Science is consistently ranked as one of the top computer science programs in the world. In 2018, it was ranked #5 on the U.S. News and World Report list of Best Computer Science Schools. The department’s Coursera-based MCS degree was launched in 2016. It opens access to a much larger and more diverse community of students worldwide. Nearly 700 students are enrolled in the program.
“We are excited to partner with C3.ai to offer the University of Illinois’ world-class computer science degree to its employees,” said Jeff Maggioncalda, CEO of Coursera. “Helping employees develop master-level skills in data science will further increase C3.ai’s leadership in artificial intelligence.”
“This advanced degree program is provided as a fully paid benefit, in addition to the existing rich curriculum of Coursera AI, IoT, cloud computing, and advanced computing courses that are offered at no cost to all C3.ai employees,” said Houman Behzadi, C3.ai Chief Product Officer. “C3.ai employees receive significant recognition in addition to cash bonuses for course completion. This is a very popular program.”
C3.ai was recently recognized as a best place to work by Battery Ventures and by Glassdoor. Last year, C3.ai CEO Thomas M. Siebel was named Glassdoor Top CEO in 2018 with a 96 percent employee approval rating and received the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award for the third time.
“We are deeply committed to life-long education, and we believe that more and more companies will move in this direction in the future. C3.ai is showing real foresight, and they are putting an incredible amount of employee support behind that foresight,” said Rashid Bashir, Dean of The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois. “New modes of delivering professional education are crucial to both companies like C3.ai and to universities like Illinois. We make a great team.”
About C3.ai
C3.ai is a leading AI software provider for accelerating digital transformation. The C3 AI Suite provides a comprehensive family of software capabilities for rapidly developing, deploying, and operating large-scale AI, predictive analytics, and IoT applications. C3.ai also provides configurable, prebuilt, high-value AI applications for solving a range of challenges, including predictive maintenance, fraud detection, sensor network health, supply chain optimization, energy management, anti-money laundering, and customer engagement.
