Persistent Systems Limited has announced a strategic collaboration with Databricks and the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) to enhance its enterprise AI engineering talent pipeline. This initiative aims to strengthen the next generation of AI-ready talent by providing students with hands-on experience in real-world AI development. The program, anchored by a Databricks-powered AI Hackathon developed with the MSOE AI Club, focuses on scaling AI delivery capabilities through collaboration across academia, technology ecosystems, and industry practitioners. It offers students the opportunity to work alongside AI professionals, bridging the gap between academic learning and practical implementation. Utilizing the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform and supported by the Databricks University Alliance, the initiative provides students with exposure to advanced data and AI engineering environments for analytics, Generative AI, and operational AI deployments. Emphasis is placed on operational scalability, governance, reliability, and engineering discipline. Participants gain practical experience with technologies like Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Agent Bricks, and Databricks Workflows, focusing on scalable AI pipelines, governed data environments, AI orchestration, and production-ready AI architectures. Persistent's senior architects and project leads actively engage with participants, imparting architectural thinking, governance frameworks, and enterprise deployment considerations. This collaboration deepens Persistent's engagement with MSOE, a leading institution in applied AI and engineering education, contributing to an academic ecosystem focused on AI, robotics, data science, and future engineering innovation. This initiative is part of Persistent’s broader partnership with Databricks, where Persistent, as a Global Systems Integrator partner, leverages over 1,300 Databricks experts and proprietary accelerators like the iAURA suite to help enterprises modernize data foundations and scale AI adoption. Together, Persistent, Databricks, and MSOE aim to establish a model integrating enterprise platforms, practitioner expertise, and academic innovation to accelerate workforce readiness for an AI-driven economy. Sameer Dixit, Corporate Vice President and Head of Data, AI and Integration at Persistent, highlighted the program's role in equipping students with real-world platform experience and engineering discipline, extending Persistent's hackathon DNA into academia. John Young from Databricks emphasized the importance of preparing talent for unified data, analytics, and AI environments. Derek Riley, PhD, Professor and Program Director of Computer Science at MSOE, noted the transformative impact of the collaboration on the MSOE AI Club and its members, enhancing their preparation for the evolving AI landscape.
