For organizations that want to remain flexible, responsive and competitive in today’s continuously fluctuating marketplace, knowledge is not only power; it's a priority. But in many of these organizations a shortage of skilled IT professionals, especially on software development and information technology operations (DevOps)and Cloud Technology craftsmanship, becomes increasingly apparent. This is a showstopper for the innovation power and speed required to remain competitive in today's digital era. But now there is instruqt to the rescue.

This is a gamified learning platform to learn technology by doing and being challenged. It allows IT professionals to take a deep-dive in technology in a fun and effective way, show their skills, and compete with friends, colleagues, and peers globally. Providing competitions and challenges in a range of leading Cloud and DevOps technologies, instruqt aims for becoming the ‘go to’ learning platform for high-end technology.  Rik Farenhorst, CEO of instruqt: “Traditional classroom-based training is not very effective to master the intricacies of all the new and complex DevOps and Cloud products that are available. The instruqt platform is an addition to – and potentially even a replacement for - traditional classroom-based and e-learning solutions. What makes instruqt unique is the quality and range of competitions. Our launch portfolio focuses on DevOps and Cloud technologies of leading providers, but we will soon expand to cover a wider portfolio in the IT ecosystem.”

The global launch of instruqt.com takes place during the Google Cloud Next 2017 conference in San Francisco (GCN’17)explains Rik Farenhorst: “Google is a true innovator in IT and its cloud solutions are appealing to a large community. The instruqt platform runs on Google Cloud technology itself, and content-wise we have a large set of challenges on  Google Cloud technology to be played.” Andre Hoekzema, head of Google Cloud Benelux, adds: “instruqt provides a great learning experience for engineers seeking to master new cloud technology and create business value with it. The community approach of the platform aligns well with Google’s values. Moreover, the platform nicely showcases the important features and qualities of technology. This accelerates the adoption and proper use of these technologies both the enterprise market and within the IT community as a whole.”

The instruqt launch event focuses on Google Cloud Technology. We challenge all GCN'17 visitors to compete in this event and solve as many of the byte-sized challenges as possible. The more challenges you solve, and the faster you do this, the higher your score. If you end up on top of the leaderboard by the end of the conference week, you will not only gain eternal fame, but also win a Google-sponsored-prize! The award ceremony is scheduled for Friday March 10, broadcast live from the conference venue (booth #C1).

Since instruqt is an online platform, during its launch week (March 6 – 10) one does not have to be in San Francisco to give it a try. All challenges and competitions are free-to-play for players worldwide. All they need to do is sign up on instruqt.com using their Google social login to start showing off their skills! Some local communities (e.g. in the Netherlands and France) are organizing viewing events during GCN’17 at which local instruqt tournaments have already been scheduled.