DBS Partners AWS To Future-Proof Employees With AI & Machine Learning Skills

DBS is taking steps to future-proof its workforce by announcing a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to ensure its employees are equipped with fundamental skills in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) by the end of the year.

The bank has set its sights on accelerating the use of AI and ML across its business. To enable this, DBS and AWS have jointly launched the DBS x AWS DeepRacer League.

With this initiative, DBS employees will learn the basics of AI and ML by participating in a series of hands-on online tutorials before putting their new knowledge to the test by programming their own autonomous model race car.

These ML models are then uploaded onto a virtual racing environment where employees can experiment and iteratively fine-tune their models as they engage each other in friendly competition.

Paul Cobban

Paul Cobban, Chief Data and Transformation Officer at DBS, said,

“We have never believed in limiting digital expertise to a small team. Instead, we passionately believe in democratising technology skillsets among all employees, so that they can run alongside the company as we advance on our digital transformation together. In line with our ethos of keeping work and learning fun, we sought to introduce gamification elements to better engage our employees, and the AWS DeepRacer League platform presented the perfect opportunity.”

Through the league, DBS expects at least 3,000 employees, including the bank’s senior leadership, to learn new AI and ML skills this year. It will be run completely online powered by AWS, from classroom to racetrack, as part of DBS’ drive to ingrain digital learning behaviours among employees.

This comes on the back of DBS’ effort to scale up its digital learning tools and platforms to enable its employees to upgrade their skills and pick up new knowledge even when they are not physically in the office.

While smaller corporate leagues have been organised in the past, this is said to be the largest among Asian-headquartered enterprises and one of the first in the world to be organised at scale by a financial institution.

Conor McNamara

“The financial services industry is rapidly evolving, and DBS is again demonstrating why they are a global award-winning bank by transforming their workforce for the digital age and equipping them with the latest knowledge on cloud technology. We are excited to collaborate with DBS to develop a talent pool that can further unlock the flexibility and power of cloud technology,”

said Conor McNamara, Managing Director, AWS ASEAN.

Employees who develop a flair and passion for AI and ML are encouraged to stretch themselves beyond the league and to pit their skills at global competitions.

Featured image: Ray Goh,DBS, Screengrab from Youtube