For nearly eight weeks, BRMi Senior Director Trevor Brown has been teaching students about cost-effectively solving real-world problems through robotic process automation (RPA) in the company’s first-ever collegiate educational engagement. Last year, BRMi partnered with James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, to create a student learning path for intelligent automation using RPA. It is one of the first RPA courses in the country offered at the college level. The initial offering of the course, Robotic Process Automation, began on January 9th and is being taught through the university’s unique collaborative learning program, JMU X-Labs.
While the current three-credit course is limited to eight students due to classroom size, many more students could attend in the future. X-Labs’ founding director Professor Nick Swayne, in an interview with JMU’s student-run newspaper, The Breeze, said “The cool thing about the X-Labs is that we get to pilot things and do things that are not part of a standard curriculum.”
“The class is going really well. I’m not looking past the great students I have now, but I’m looking forward to more classes in the future,” said Mr. Brown. He hopes to teach more JMU students and to expand BRMi partnerships to other schools in the future. Robotic Process Automation is part of BRMi’s corporate commitment to its community and fulfilling the need for advanced education for its future technology workforce.