Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller co-founded Coursera in 2012. Both Andrew and Daphne are accomplished academicians in their respective fields. Daphne has recently founded another firm named Insitro, which offers innovative solutions to the learning of sciences by applying machine learning techniques. Andrew Ng played a vital role in the development of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platform at Stanford, He taught an online machine learning class that was offered to over 100,000 students, and this led to the founding of Coursera.
Coursera is an e-learning platform. It collaborates with 200 plus universities in offering courses of a wide range that include skill certifications, degrees, and short courses. The courses are free for learning, but charged when taken for certification. Coursera certificates are authenticated by the credentials of respective institutions and universities offering the courses.
Coursera is based on a unique business model and operates in collaboration with participating institutions. While the respective institutions produce the courses, Coursera makes the courses accessible to learners around the world. It currently offers more than three thousand courses in 13 languages. It is said, more than 40 million learners have accessed its courses as of now. Coursera stands as the largest provider in the online education market. It is worth more than $1 billion according to Forbes.
Website: https://www.coursera.org/
Vijaya, as I am a student of Coursera, great choice on an educational platform and founders!
What I really like about Andrew Ng, aside from his brilliance, is his many successful efforts to “democratize deep learning” by teaching over 2.5 million students through his online courses. He is one of the world’s most famous and influential computer scientists being named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2012, and Fast Company’s Most Creative People in 2014. To continue on his philosophy of democratizing deep learning, in 2019, Ng launched a new course which I hope to take soon: “AI for Everyone” ,a non-technical course designed to help people understand AI’s impact on society and its benefits and costs for companies, as well as how they can navigate through this technological revolution.
Daphne Koller is also an amazing example of a brilliant founder. As I am drawn to founders who can cross disciplines, I note the ACM-AAAI Allen Newell Award she received in 2019 for contributions with significant breadth across computing, or that bridge computer science and other disciplines. She is an Israeli-American computer scientist, a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University, and a MacArthur Fellowship recipient Koller is primarily interested in representation, inference, learning, and decision making, with a focus on applications to computer vision and computational biology and its application in biomedical sciences.
Alice, that was a great addition to the information about the founders, and right, they did turn Coursera into one of the most sought after education portals around the globe.
I too had taken a few courses on Coursera. But, I didn’t have a chance to look into that course on ‘AI for Everyone’, sounds interesting. I would definitely like to audit that course, although I may not take it for any certification. Thanks for that information.
Both of these co-founders are excellent role-models. They show what can be accomplished with hard work and an excellent idea. It is inspiring to see those who help start a now massive field within online education
Agreed on what can be accomplished with hard work and a excellent idea, but I am amazed at their sheer brilliance – so much brain power I couldn’t believe it.
I also looked up Andrew Ng’s wife – Carol E. Reily – whose an uber data / robotics / deep learning AI expert as well, along with being a children’s book author, and Guerlain model. Give me a break!
Coursera is where I wish to study. Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller were excellent founders. Coursera differs from other online platforms in that it works closely with higher education institutions all over the world to offer a wide range of popular subjects like computer science, data science, information technology, mathematics, language learning, arts and humanities, and business. Such as University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), University of Michigan (UMich), Arizona State University (ASU) and other prestigious universities. This partnership model and development path are critical to its long-term success and value.