A pioneer in neural network speech recognition, Alex invented time-delay networks in 1989 as part of his PhD at CMU, having previously graduated from MIT with a BSc in 1979. In addition to his academic career, he has co-founded 10 successful commercial ventures. One of these, Jibbigo, was acquired by Facebook in 2013, leading Alex to found Facebook's Language Technologies group. He has received more prizes and distinctions than we have space to list here, and is a fellow of the IEEE and a member of the German Academy of Sciences.
School of Artificial Intelligence
We help individuals and organizations of all sizes navigate the AI landscape with confidence and innovation.
At Pi School, we’re dedicated to nurturing the next generation of AI professionals and excel in connecting academic theory with practical application. Our students acquire hands-on experience by working on projects that enhance their technical expertise and render them highly desirable to industry leaders. We believe in preparing our students to excel in the dynamic field of AI by equipping them with a broad skillset encompassing communication, business acumen, and soft skills, ensuring they’re well-prepared to succeed and make meaningful contributions.
Our comprehensive corporate training programmes empower businesses to embrace the AI revolution. Our tailored courses enable professionals to understand, strategize, and implement AI effectively within their organizations, ensuring teams are well-equipped to harness the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence. Contact us and discover more.
School of AI for Individuals
Become an AI expert through our hands-on mentoring programme, working on real industry projects.
Twice a year, we host a batch of the best engineers worldwide to turn them into AI specialists. Each receives personalized coaching and guidance from an expert. They apply their new skills to industry projects provided either by their own employer or by world-leading tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and fast-growing startups.
Merit First. Top engineers get in for free. We used to give those who transferred from abroad a travel and accommodation grant. Not anymore, as the program is 100% online.
Learn by doing. Rather than listening to lectures, run into issues and solve them. The desks and environment are organized to support small project teams, agile co-development, and interactions with mentors.
Real-world projects, no simulations. Our partners sponsor top engineers to solve real challenges. This may convert into the best job you ever had.
Session 15 of the School of AI began on 9 December 2024.
All applications submitted between 9 December 2024 and 18 February 2025 will be considered for Session 16, which is scheduled to start in Q2 2025.
At a glance
- Start date Q2 2025
- Duration 8 weeks full-time
- Participants See requirements
- Fees The programme fees of 12,500 € are fully covered by the available grants
- Location Hybrid
- Sponsors Do you have a challenge that AI can solve? Talk with us!
Apply for the School of AI
Please complete the form below, this is only step 1 and you will be taken to step 2 to complete the application process.
Outcomes
Enter the world of AI through the front door
Engage with leaders from top industries and research groups
Get expert advice on your own project
Gain expertise
Schedule
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Before Are you an enterprise? We will consult with you to format your AI project for the School of AI. |
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Week 1 Programme introduction and creation of a baseline solution. |
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Week 2 Implement state of the art algorithm, test on data, evaluate metrics |
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Weeks 3-6 Project work, personalized training, tutoring and mentoring, group activities |
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Week 7 Fine-tune algorithms, document code, wrap up |
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Week 8 Project presentations and final event |
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After Recruitment opportunities with our partners. Alumni events at Pi Campus. |
Requirements
We strive to gather bright and curious minds to create a stimulating environment, where you can rapidly expand your knowledge on machine learning and AI.
We are looking for people with experience in computer science, math, physics, or other computational subjects, who want to learn more about machine learning, and apply it to real world projects in a fast and stimulating environment.
You will immediately start working on real and challenging problems to tackle with AI, while learning about state of the art techniques during workshops and lectures and while interacting with expert mentors.
General
- plan and self-manage your project
- research and understand the scientific literature on how to address the challenges you may face, with the help and guidance of mentors and your peers
Minimum Qualifications
- BSc in a STEM field such as Computer Science, Math, PPhysics, Neuroscience or other computational subjects
- Familiarity with general purpose programming languages, like Python or C/C++
- Proven knowledge of linear algebra, calculus, probability and computer science
- Ability to communicate your work in English in a clear and concise way
Preferred Qualifications
- MSc/PhD in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, Physics, Neuroscience or other computational subjects.
- Experience with machine learning, with applications in fields like computer vision, natural language processing, speech recognition, or other
- Experience with machine learning libraries such as Tensorflow, Scikit Learn, PyTorch, or other.
Programme director
Sébastien Bratières
Director of AI, Translated
Sébastien has over 15 years of experience in the AI industry, covering topics ranging from speech interfaces and chatbots to data science. He has taught both professionals and students at institutions including École Centrale Paris and LUISS Business School in Rome, and consistently receives glowing reviews from his pupils. He carried out his PhD in probabilistic machine learning at the University of Cambridge, home to one of the world’s leading research labs. Sébastien is a regular speaker at international events dealing with machine intelligence.
The programme director will be available at all times to:
- define your strategy
- recommend resources, libraries
- fill knowledge gaps
- help when you get stuck
- … and challenge you when you’re low on energy!
Scientific Committee
Our scientific committee is here to make sure that every single project is based on bleeding edge technology. Simply put, they make sure there’s no better way to do it.
Alexander Waibel
Professor, Carnegie Mellon University & Karlsruhe Institute of Technology;
Director, InterACT 
Alexander Waibel
Professor, Carnegie Mellon University & Karlsruhe Institute of Technology;
Director, InterACT
Director, InterACT
Hassan Sawaf
Founder, aiXplain inc.
ex-Dir AI at Meta, AWS, e-Bay
Hassan Sawaf
Founder, aiXplain inc.
ex-Dir AI at Meta, AWS, e-Bay
ex-Dir AI at Meta, AWS, e-Bay
After completing his PhD at RWTH Aachen, Hassan started off as a researcher, but quickly branched out and set up a speech-to-speech translation company. He has served as a CEO or Chief Scientist for several ventures in the speech recognition industry. He joined eBay in 2013 and became Head of AI before leaving to head up Amazon's AI efforts. He is now Director of AI at AWS. Hassan serves as a board member and advisor for a number of AI companies which he helped to found, including Witlingo and Gyant. Hassan also makes angel investments through Keiretsu.
Marcello Federico
Sr. Principal Scientist, Amazon
Marcello Federico
Sr. Principal Scientist, Amazon
Mentors
Our mentors are AI engineers from the industry's finest labs.
Alongside the Programme Director, they will coach the students on a weekly basis.
—Lukasz KaiserMember of Technical Staff at OpenAI
—Riccardo SabatiniChief Data Scientist at Orionis Biosciences
—Novi QuadriantoNewton Fellow at University of Cambridge
FAQ – School of AI for individuals
Grant selection process
If you’re talented and meet our requirements, our partners are interested in sponsoring you. We will award grants following a selection process based on a CV, a HackerRank test and one or more technical video interviews with our mentors and/or Faculty Director (focusing on engineering skills rather than AI).
Do I have to stay on-site for the entire 8 weeks?
Due to Covid-19, we decided to divide the program as follows:
Weeks 1-7: remote.
Week 8: live in Rome. We will try our best to grant you the maximum benefit, not just from the lectures and mentoring sessions, but also from informal networking and exchanges.
Under special circumstances (e.g. family or professional reasons), you may take some days off the Programme, communicating your needs beforehand to Pi School staff and the Faculty Director.
If financial reasons (e.g. accommodation and maintenance) would prevent you from attending, please contact us, as we have maintenance grants available.
What is included?
- 1-to-1 mentoring sessions
- a desk at Pi School for the duration of the programme, complete with 27″ Dell monitor
- AWS, Google Cloud Engine and Azure computing infrastructure for compute-intensive jobs
- additional Pi Campus events: tech talks, evenings with entrepreneurs and influencers
- Pi Campus perks: spinning, yoga, tai chi, gym, swimming pool, and sauna
- breakfast, snacks, and lunches delivered from a nearby restaurant on weekdays
- social events
What is left for me to organize?
- a laptop
- plenty of free time to study and work
- travel to Rome and Pi School
- accommodation
The school will pay for the travel and accommodation.
A showcase of previous projects
Here are some projects already developed during the last AI program at Pi School. We favour individual mentoring and inverted classrooms over classic instructor-led courses, and real-world project work over generic exercises.
20 November 2023
Pioneering Adaptive Machine Translation with Large Language Models
30 January 2023Machine Learning: A NLP model to automatically classify incoming data
13 November 2023AI Travel Assistant: a case study of La Filanda
16 January 2023Document digitization: information extraction using AI
Areas we cover
Deep learning
Gesture recognition
Text and document processing
Big data systems
Data collection and generation
Speech, sound, image, video processing
Time series
Recommendation systems
About Pi School
Pi School was co-founded by Marco Trombetti and Jamshid Alamuti in 2016, offering a new education model that focused on accessible, continuous learning and bridging the gap between study and career. Pi School offers professional education programmes and bespoke courses in its three cornerstone areas: innovation, creativity and design, and AI and machine learning.
Pi School is part of Pi Campus. Located in Rome, Italy, Pi Campus is both a venture capital fund and a startup district; it invests in growth-stage startups, with 48 investments in Italy and worldwide, and hosts some of them. Pi Campus was co-founded in 2007 by Marco Trombetti, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, based on the commercial success of his first venture, Translated, an online translation platform which he co-founded in 1999 with his wife Isabelle Andrieu, now CEO of Pi School.
