Shelby Williams (at left) and Antoine Barnes are two of the 19 Scale AI employees who make up the inaugural cohort of company staffers enrolled in the Geographic Information Systems Certificate program. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

Shelby Williams eagerly headed back to school on Aug. 26 as she joined 18 of her Scale AI co-workers on their first day of class in the Geographic Information System Certificate program at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

The Introduction to Geographic Information Systems and Sciences course is being offered in a live virtual format, but the new students still gathered together in Scale AI’s office in The Post Building in downtown St. Louis for the inaugural 1-hour, 15-minute session.

“I’m really excited because I’m expecting to gain a stronger technical foundation in GIS and geospatial analysis, particularly in areas like spatial data management, mapping and applying problem-solving,” Williams said. “I’m also looking forward to learning new industry tools and even some of the methodologies that I can directly apply to Scale to make our workforce more efficient and our outputs more impactful.”

Williams and her colleagues make up the first cohort of students in the GIS Certificate Program since UMSL and Scale AI announced a partnership last April.

Scale AI’s roughly 250 employees in the St. Louis region work at the intersection of artificial intelligence and national security, collecting and labeling vast amounts of data and converting it into high-quality training datasets that AI models can learn from. Their efforts are foundational in advancing national security, autonomous systems and large-scale data operations.

Under the agreement with UMSL, Scale AI employees are receiving prior learning credit for their geospatial training and on-the-job experience at Scale AI when they choose to pursue their geospatial certificate through the university.

“This is a public-private sector partnership that has come together to empower the workforce in the St. Louis region,” said Reggie Hill, UMSL’s vice chancellor for strategic enrollment and career advancement.

“This partnership exemplifies how industry expertise in AI and geospatial technologies merges seamlessly with professional learning, reinforcing our mission at UMSL’s Advanced Workforce Center to prepare the workforce of tomorrow,” added Jamie Liston, UMSL’s interim executive director for workforce integration and strategic partnerships. “We’re really pleased to see the interest from Scale employees who registered as part of this first cohort.”

Antoine Barnes was intrigued when Scale AI leadership made the first announcement about the GIS Certificate Program last spring.

Barnes has been with the company since December 2020, beginning as a data labeler and getting promoted to cleared Geospatial AI Trainer (Level 3), in which he works with both classified and unclassified information and specializes in identifying and labeling objects in Electro-Optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar images. But he had no background in geospatial technology when he joined the company; he’s held jobs as a pharmacy technician and patient care technician and most recently worked as a warehouse manager’s assistant at a local nonprofit.

“As I began working with satellite imagery and solving complex annotation problems, I developed a genuine interest in the technical challenges and problem-solving involved,” Barnes said. “I see this program as a way to strengthen my technical expertise, bring fresh perspectives to my team and better contribute to Scale AI’s mission to accelerate the development of AI applications.”

Despite seeing the value of the program, Barnes was initially afraid financial barriers would prevent him from taking advantage of the opportunity.

But UMSL was able to provide scholarships to 13 students with funding from the state of Missouri awarded to the university last year as part of a $675,000 grant to UMSL’s Advanced Workforce Center through the MoExcels Workforce Initiative.

“The scholarship is essential in making this opportunity possible,” Barnes said. “It not only eases the financial burden of continuing my education but also allows me to focus fully on learning and applying the skills from the program.”

Williams is also a beneficiary of one of the scholarships, though she’d committed to pursuing the geospatial certificate even before learning they were being offered.

“I was just going to make it work somehow,” she said. “I feel absolutely blessed that I got that.”

Like a lot of Scale AI employees, she came to the company after previously serving time in the military – in her case working as F-35 crew chief in the U.S. Air Force. She also had no background in geospatial technology before starting in October 2022, but through the training program Scale AI has created in St. Louis, she is now in trial as a Geospatial Production Manager, mentoring and coaching other AI trainers on geospatial labeling to create datasets used by the Department of Defense.

The geospatial certificate can only enhance her credentials, and she expects more of her colleagues to pursue it in the future.

“With the excitement in office from the people that are already in the program, it’s spreading,” Williams said. “I think we’ve got a few more people ready to apply next semester. I definitely expect Scale’s numbers to grow.”

AJ Segal, the St. Louis AI Center Lead at Scale AI, looks forward to seeing the continued fruits of the UMSL partnership.

“We are proud to partner with a forward-thinking institution like UMSL, which is helping us pioneer a new model for workforce development right here in St. Louis,” Segal said. “Shelby and Antoine, along with the rest of our inaugural cohort, are an inspiring example of the unique opportunities we can create in AI.”