After a successful inaugural year, Drake State Community & Technical College is taking part in a national AI challenge for the second straight year.

Global analytics software creator Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO) announced the continuation of its Educational Analytics Challenge for the spring 2026 semester.

Since its launch three years ago, FICO has partnered with eight HBCUs including Drake State, which was the first community college in the country to be selected for the program.

“FICO is here at Drake State to launch our year three challenge, which is based around the use of large language models and financial applications,” FICO Chief Analytics Officer Dr. Scott Zoldi said during the announcement on campus. “We are working with students who will build chatbots that understand human speech, and to correctly resolve questions to better make these processes more efficient where AI is involved.”

The semester-long program brings together students with data science, engineering, and technology backgrounds to apply data science and AI to real business problems.

The challenge focus enables student participants to deepen their understanding of how AI language models and chatbots used by financial institutions are developed and trained, including exposure to FICO’s focused language model approach.

The program is led by Zoldi and the analytics team of industry data scientists. The team combines weekly lectures with hands-on mentorship throughout the semester.

“The FICO educational challenge was spawned from a recognition that we needed to have more diversity in data science,” Zoldi said. “Diversity of thought and diversity of participation, and so, from that perspective, we want to make sure that we involve students from all across the different universities we interact with and HBCUs are a really critical part of that and to have a voice in how data science is used to solve these problems, and ensuring that we have that perspective in every model that gets built.

Zoldi said the program could also benefit FICO.

“We want them to be part of our team eventually so as we invest in them, right, and we introduce them to what those jobs look like,’’ he said. “If they continue to be interested in that, they can join our team or other teams.’’

The program allows students with data science, computer science, engineering, and technology backgrounds to improve their AI skills.

In addition to academic instruction, the program provides financial support to enhance analytics education at each participating university and offers career resources to help students.

“The Analytics Challenge program provides students the opportunity to learn how industry data scientists use AI — how they work with data, create models, and ultimately realize the value of AI,” Zoldi said. “We’re proud to support students at the university level and serve as mentors ahead of their careers and to provide this industry real world experience.

“As AI becomes more deeply embedded in the workforce, understanding how to create impact responsibly and ethically will be a much-desired technical skill.”

FICO, founded in 1956, is a pioneer in the use of predictive analytics and data science to improve operational decisions. Learn more at https://www.fico.com/en.

Established in 1961, Drake State is a historically black community college in Huntsville.

Drake State offers flexible university-transfer two-year degrees, technical degrees, certificates, adult and continuing education, and customized technical skills training for Huntsville/Madison County employers.

Visit drakestate.edu for more information.