The spotlight is on Carlos González, Senior Lecturer, Informatics and Telecommunications School, Duoc UC, Chile

Duoc UC is a higher education institution in Chile specializing in technical and professional career development. Its colleges offer studies in more than 70 careers across the nation.

Informatics and Telecommunications School of Duoc UC is present in 14 campuses which offer a comprehensive program to prepare its 14,000 students for jobs in the digital workplace. The institution has integrated the Oracle Academy curriculum into its database subjects and plans to have 10,000 students using Oracle Cloud.

Duoc UC became a member of Oracle Academy in 2013. Since then, 50 faculty members have been trained in teaching database technology.

Carlos González, Senior Lecturer in the Informatics and Telecommunications School, leads the database instruction team, which delivers courses solely in Oracle Cloud Free Tier. He has a postgraduate degree in Artificial Intelligence and continues to follow developments in that area.

Oracle Academy: Why did you decide to migrate to the Oracle Cloud?

Carlos González: We planned the migration because we recognize cloud technologies as a growing industry demand, and cloud skills are essential amongst the competencies of every ICT professional. It was a path that we started with that conviction. Oracle Cloud Free Tier initially was implemented during the pandemic for classes that required database laboratories, since students no longer had physical access to them. The pandemic made us accelerate the step towards the cloud, and today, it is the natural platform for everyone.

The Oracle Academy Cloud Program has enabled teachers and students to access cloud services, anytime, anywhere, and completely free of charge, including Oracle Cloud Free Tier, Oracle Autonomous Database, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, and virtual machines (VM), and use them as a "remote laboratory” to teach, learn, explore, and build in the cloud.

Oracle Academy: What are your plans for the Oracle Cloud Free Tier platform?

Carlos González: We have three major subjects: Database Modeling, Database Querying and Database Programming. Each subject is based on Oracle Academy Database Design and Programming with SQL and Programming with PL/SQL curriculum. For over one year now we have been delivering these courses remotely using the Oracle Cloud Free Tier through the Oracle Academy Cloud Program.

To date we have provisioned 50 teachers and 3,000 students. The goal is to give accounts to almost 10,000 students.

Oracle Academy: How will you roll it out?

Carlos González: We began using Oracle Cloud this year and it will be our teaching platform going forward. As of next year, use of Oracle Cloud will be mandatory in the Informatics and Telecommunications School. The plan for 2022 is to deepen our knowledge of Oracle Cloud, oiling the machine so to speak, train more teachers, document the process, and officialize it as the database learning platform.

In addition, we are evaluating the addition of new subjects, such as Big Data and Artificial Intelligence with Machine Learning in Java.

Oracle Academy: How has the cloud adoption been so far?

Carlos González: For the students it’s been as smooth as silk. But not all faculty members were prepared for the, so to say, ‘digital disruption’. About quarter were reluctant to switch to cloud as the teaching platform. Yet with encouragement, we achieved a change of mindset and today it’s the natural platform for everyone. We’ve introduced twice yearly cloud refresher courses for the faculty.

Oracle Academy: Are you also using Oracle Application Express (APEX)?

Carlos González: Yes, Oracle APEX is wonderful for students learning how to develop cloud-native apps. In Chile most companies are small and medium enterprises. They don’t necessarily want to spend a lot of money on apps development and so skills such as Oracle APEX are very welcome for agile development of niche apps or any apps.

Oracle Academy: We hear that Duoc also focuses on the development of females in the IT industry.

Carlos González: Yes, we have some special initiatives for women. Currently in Duoc’s Informatics and Telecommunications School, only 11 percent of students are female. Yet that’s still the highest number of female IT students in any Chilean education institution. And the numbers are growing.

Meanwhile, we run an extracurricular program called Más Mujeres en las TICs (More Women in ICT), aiming at demystifying the idea that IT careers for women are difficult and providing our female students with more tools for IT development.

Oracle Academy: How do you think technology will advance in the future?

Carlos González: I studied artificial intelligence and I keep up to date with advances in technology. It’s fascinating to project 2040, for example, with unimaginable technology change. Just in climbing to the cloud we found millions of innovating options.

Teaching is going through a profound change due to the massive acceleration in computing. I’m happy that Oracle Academy gives us the structural knowledge to develop fruitful education in line with the changes we are all undergoing.

Oracle Academy: And what do you like to do outside of the Duoc teaching?

Carlos González: I am a competitive runner. Today I don’t do the full 42 km marathons but frequently participate in 21 km or 10 km events. I keep fit jogging 4-5 times a week for 45 mins in Santiago. Otherwise, I relax to calm music or podcasts and study all the time.

Thank you, Carlos González, for your passion for Oracle Academy and for preparing your students to make a positive impact.