NICE announced a collaboration with Nichols College to form a Center for Intelligent Process Automation (CIPA) to jointly expand the next generation of robotic process automation (RPA) developers. Using NICE’s RPA capabilities and training, students at Nichols College, a private institute of higher education in Dudley, Massachusetts, will learn to develop, support and consult on robotic process automation projects.

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Despite the rapid growth in demand for RPA, organizations claim that experienced automation developers are still scarce. Through its support of academic projects like CIPA, NICE is helping to shape the future IT workforce with more graduates bringing these much-desired skills to the table.

In addition to promoting the education of the next generation of automation developers and experts, NICE and Nichols College are collaborating to make CIPA a “center of excellence” providing training, research, automation solutions and consultation to the greater educational and business communities. This will both increase career prospects for students and expand the pool of automation experts in a market where they are increasingly in demand. NICE’s alliance with Nichols College also opens the door for student-initiated research projects and curricular opportunities, such as new degree and non-degree programs related to emerging technologies.

Glenn M. Sulmasy, President of Nichols College, said, “We chose NICE for this important initiative following a competitive procurement process to ensure our students are trained on the most cutting-edge technology and that we have a good partner to make this a success. The partnership with NICE catapults Nichols College to the forefront of tech business and leadership education and builds an analytics mindset across the institution. CIPA provides students an unrivaled immersive opportunity in a data science field that is revolutionizing the business landscape, including the opportunity to apply their RPA skills toward solving real problems for neighboring organizations. This is a hallmark of the Nichols experiential education and another example of our commitment to the community.”

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Barry Cooper, President, NICE Workforce and Customer Experience Group, stated, “With the establishment of CIPA and the support of NICE, Nichols College ensures its curriculum is attuned to trending technologies and practical job market opportunities. Together, we provide students with increasingly desirable RPA skills, as well as unique hands-on experience while creating more options for organizations to find new developers to meet their automation needs. We are proud to collaborate with Nichols College”