Gies Business reaches 33K learners in Ukraine through free online courses

More than 33,000 learners in Ukraine have taken advantage of a new online education program offered in partnership between Gies College of Business and Prometheus. The program, launched in early 2024, offers a series of fully online business courses to learners in war-torn Ukraine through Prometheus World University. Gies’ participation furthers the College’s commitment to creating life-changing access to business education and provides an important service to a nation decimated by the Russian invasion that began in 2022 and continues today. The University of Illinois is among several schools participating in the program; others include Harvard, MIT, Michigan, Duke, California, and Johns Hopkins.

The online courses offered by Gies are asynchronous, meaning they are completely self-paced. They are free to join and are non-credit-bearing. The four courses include Digital Media and Marketing Principles; Digital Media and Marketing Strategies; Corporate Finances I: Measuring and Promoting Value Creation; and Project Initiation and Planning. Each course has enrolled more than 5,000 learners so far with a 98.5% satisfaction rate.

“We were contacted by the US Embassy in Ukraine and Prometheus to see if we were interested in sharing our coursework with learners in Ukraine, and we jumped at the opportunity,” said Amanda Brantner, Director of Content and Educational Portfolio Strategy at Gies. “This is in line with our mission as a College, and we’re very excited to be able make these courses available to a wider audience.”

Material for each course was sourced from Gies’ existing massive open online courses (MOOCs) on these topics. Prometheus managed the process of translating the courses into Ukrainian and is hosting the courses on their platform. Gies plans to offer several more courses through this partnership, including content in accounting, project management, finance, and organizational management.

"We're thankful to The University of Illinois' Gies College of Business for allowing us to translate and share their top-notch online courses on the Prometheus platform,” said Ivan Prymachenko, co-founder of Prometheus. “This helps millions of Ukrainians access high-quality education. These opportunities can truly change the lives of those affected by war.”