Big Nerd Ranch Partners with Amazon for Free Voice Development Training
Big Nerd Ranch, a provider of immersive application development bootcamps and app development services, is working with Amazon to develop training courses for the Alexa Skills Kit. The Alexa Skills Kit is a collection of APIs and tools that allow developers to create new voice-driven capabilities for Alexa, the brain behind the Amazon Echo and Alexa-enabled devices.
Through this free training, available to developers worldwide later this month, developers will learn how to enable devices to complete voice-driven commands for such activities as making dinner reservations or setting an alarm. Students will learn to build Alexa Skills from start to finish, beginning with development environment setup, and concluding with Amazon certification and more complex skill interactions, like account linking. Best practices for voice user interfaces will also be taught, along with user interface design, database interaction, testing, and more.
"Smart home innovation and the Internet of Things are at the forefront of emerging technology," said Aaron Hillegass, CEO and founder of Big Nerd Ranch, in a statement. "Big Nerd Ranch has been on the cusp of cutting-edge technologies for 15 years, and we're delighted to work with Amazon to give brands and developers the education and tools necessary to better serve their users."
"Through the Alexa Skills Kit, developers have access to a collection of self-service APIs, tools, and code samples that make it fast and easy to add skills to Alexa-enabled devices," said Rob Pulciani, director of Alexa, in a statement. "Today we're thrilled to make it even easier for developers to build Alexa Skills by working with Big Nerd Ranch, the leader in developer training courses. Big Nerd Ranch Alexa courses will get developers up to speed on Voice User Interface design, and how to quickly create natural language experiences for Alexa. The courses are intuitive, fun and educational—and all at no cost to the developer."
Related Articles
Just in time for the Super Bowl, Domino's Pizza is letting customers use voice to order pizza deliveries via the Amazon Echo device.
03 Feb 2016
Vivint customers can use their voices to control door locks, thermostat, lights, cameras, garage doors, and more
06 Jan 2016
Ford is developing ways to pair millions of SYNC-equipped vehicles globally with home automation devices or smart home products.
05 Jan 2016