Today the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) released its technology learning platform, MIT Horizon, for enterprise use. The subscription-based service covers emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, 3D printing, robotics, and blockchain. It already counts HP and Amsted as customers.
The US university built Horizon to address the lack of resources on emerging technologies for business. While companies aim to keep up with the newest tech, they often fall behind. This is partly because training up workers on often complex concepts is expensive and time-consuming.
With articles, videos, and podcasts on technologies like blockchain, MIT hopes to fill this gap with Horizon. The university already offers much of its learning content to the public through MIT Open Learning. Though Horizon appears to be its first enterprise-focused service.
Sanjay Sarma, MIT’s VP for open learning, said: “Technologies are advancing very rapidly, and we feel a responsibility at MIT to provide learning opportunities that can help today’s workforce keep up with this pace of innovation.”
“With MIT Horizon, we aim to introduce more granular learning in a variety of formats that teams can easily consume,” he added.
Today’s announcement revealed that five organizations have already signed up to Horizon, such as HP and Amsted. With Gartner predicting that 60% of CIOs across all industries will adopt blockchain in the next three years, business knowledge is crucial.
There are blockchain training initiatives for insurance and digital currencies, the latter aiming to educate a Chinese audience on Libra and the country’s central bank currency plans. However, MIT appears to be the first high profile organization to launch a cross-sector learning platform.
Science-focused MIT has had a part in the founding of blockchain firms like Nebula and Eximchain. The university built Blockcerts, the standard for qualifications on a blockchain, with Learning Machine.
