The AI-thon | 2025
Join a statewide initiative to enhance your digital proficiency and gain essential generative AI skills. Mississippi residents can access free resources, courses, and tools to future-proof their careers!
How does it work?
Step 1
Register for the AI-thon! Create your free AI-Thon account and gain access to LinkedIn Learning and other partner platforms to access courses for free.
Step 2
Follow the links in your email from us to explore self-paced courses, tutorials, and interactive tools tailored to your goals.
Step 3
Complete courses to build your credentials. Showcase your achievements with industry-recognized certificates. Upload your certificates of completion so you are eligible for cash prizes!
Congratulations to our 2024 winners and thank you to all participants from the following organizations:
Thanks to support from:
Mississippi AI-Thon
Welcome to the AI-Thon! We’ve gathered together a series of free courses designed to equip you with essential skills in Generative AI and related digital tools.
To complete the program, click the links in each module to access and finish the courses most relevant to your goals. Gain certifications and practical skills to advance in your career.
Submit your completed certificates to earn points towards cash prizes!
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Gen AI for Beginners
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Lesson 1: Gen AI Basics
Feeling completely new to the field? No problem! We’ve put together a step by step learning path so you can become familiar with some basic AI tools and concepts.
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Lesson 2: Introduction to Generative AI
This is an introductory level microlearning course aimed at explaining what Generative AI is, how it is used, and how it differs from traditional machine learning methods.
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Generative AI Explained
Learn Generative AI concepts and applications, as well as the challenges and opportunities in this exciting field.
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Microsoft and LinkedIn Learning Professional Certificates
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Career Essentials in Generative AI
Discover the skills needed to apply generative AI in your career. Learn the core concepts of artificial intelligence and generative AI functionality.
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Build Your Generative AI Productivity Skills
Enhance your productivity by applying generative AI skills to your work. This course enables you to transform raw data into meaningful insights, create compelling presentations, and generate creative content using the latest AI tools.
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AI for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs
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AI in Digital Marketing
Learn how AI, Big Data, and Machine Learning can transform business operations and decision-making. This specialization is designed for professionals seeking to integrate AI into their business strategies.
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Generative AI Learning Plan for Decision Makers
This specialization introduces key AI concepts, tools, and strategies, with a focus on business-oriented solutions. It’s ideal for professionals aiming to align AI capabilities with organizational goals.
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AI for Nonprofits
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Introduction to AI Skills for nonprofits
This learning path is designed to enhance the digital capabilities of nonprofit professionals by teaching how to boost productivity with AI across Microsoft applications like Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Excel, and Teams.
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Leveraging Generative AI for Social Impact Organizations
A collaboration between TechSoup Courses and Microsoft to enhance AI skills for nonprofits
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AI for Educators
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AI for Educators
Offered by Microsoft, this course explores how AI can enhance teaching and learning through concepts like large language models, generative AI, prompt engineering, and responsible AI use. Educators will learn to apply AI-powered tools in Microsoft Edge, Word, PowerPoint, Minecraft, and more to transform their classrooms.
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Generative AI for Educators
This course teaches educators how generative AI can streamline lesson planning, personalize instruction, and enhance classroom creativity. Participants gain practical skills to use AI tools effectively, saving time and boosting student engagement.
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AI for K-12 Students
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Intermediate Courses
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Microsoft's Introduction to Machine Learning Pathway
Part of Microsoft’s foundations of data science for machine learning pathway, this course provides familiarity with the core concepts on which machine learning is based and is an important foundation for understanding more advanced AI concepts.
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AWS Introduction to Machine Learning: Art of the Possible
After taking this set of courses, you'll understand how artificial intelligence (AI) led to machine learning (ML), which then led to deep learning (DL).
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More Advanced AI Applications
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Quality and Safety for LLM Applications
It’s always crucial to address and monitor safety and quality concerns in your applications. Building LLM applications poses special challenges. In this course, you’ll explore new metrics and best practices to monitor your LLM systems and ensure safety and quality.
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Generative AI with Large Language Models
In Generative AI with Large Language Models (LLMs), you’ll learn the fundamentals of how generative AI works, and how to deploy it in real-world applications.
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Natural Language Processing (NLP)
This course will teach you about natural language processing (NLP) using libraries from the Hugging Face ecosystem — Transformers, Datasets, Tokenizers, and Accelerate — as well as the Hugging Face Hub.
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Foundational Generative AI
Looking for a one stop shop? This course combines theory and practical implementation, fostering a dynamic learning experience focused on building real-world Generative AI applications while promoting community engagement.
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Specialized & Advanced Courses
NVIDIA's DLI provides hands-on training in AI, accelerated computing, and data science. Courses cover topics like deep learning, AI infrastructure, and generative AI, with options for self-paced learning and instructor-led workshops. Participants can earn certifications to validate their expertise.
Hugging Face offers a range of courses focused on natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning. Their curriculum includes topics like transformers, diffusion models, and deep reinforcement learning, providing practical experience with open-source AI tools.
Streamlit offers tutorials that teach how to build and deploy interactive data applications using Python. These tutorials cover creating data visualizations, integrating machine learning models, and deploying apps, providing practical experience in developing data-driven web applications.