Data science is the most advanced transformative tool currently available among business owners. No wonder organizations are increasingly moving toward data-driven decision making. According to a market report, the data analytics market is expected to grow 30.08% between 2020 and 2023, which roughly translates to $77.6 billion.
Data-driven decision making has taken over traditional decision –making methods, increasing demand for data science professionals. Companies require professionals who understand the nitty-gritty of data science and how it can be used in the context of business processes. To fulfill this demand for data science professionals, universities, colleges, and other educational institutions have come up with data science initiatives.
The initiatives focus on imparting world-class data science education and research, thereby building talent and expanding data science.
What is a data science initiative?
Data science initiative is an education program that focuses on developing data science talent and advancing the data science industry by undertaking data science research. Under data science initiatives, universities and colleges offer bachelor’s, master’s, and even doctoral programs in data science. Several sponsored researches are a part of data science initiatives. Here are a few global universities that have prominent data science initiatives.
- Harvard University’s Data Science Initiative
The data science initiative program offers post-doctoral program and research opportunities. Currently, the data science research at the university revolves around methodology, which explores new data science methods to gain insights from the humongous amount of data generated every day. Harvard’s data science initiative brings together experts from computer science, statistics, and domain-specific to invent new ways to gain insights from data.
- Brown University’s Data Science Initiative
The initiative offers a master’s program and a doctoral certificate in data science. Additionally, the initiative is a hub of research from multiple areas with an underlying emphasis on data science. Several corporates including Adobe, Google, Microsoft, etc. have sponsored research at the university.
- Stanford’s Data Science Initiative
The initiative brings various disciplines together including physics, astrophysics, humanities, human health, linguistics, and more to explore the intersection of data science with each other. As part of the initiative, Stanford University offers one of the top data science programs among educational institutes. The initiative has led to several breakthrough inventions in the field of data science. Deep Dive, for instance, a system developed by the university has garnered huge attention due to its widespread application to collect insights from dark data.
4. Northwestern University’s Data Science Initiative
Northwestern University runs a top-notch data science initiative that undertakes research and imparts data science education through masters and doctoral programs. Currently, the university offers a master’s program in data science. Life sciences, physical sciences, social sciences, and sustainability are a few areas in which the university is pursuing research.
5. World Data Science Initiative ( WDSI)
This initiative offers up to 300 million in grants and subsidies for universities. It aims to build a pool of over 250 million data science professionals. As part of the initiative, WDSI helps universities and other educational institutions set up international centers of excellence with state-of-the-art infrastructure.
Taking the industry ahead
Data science is transforming the industry in ways never imagined. The credit for a significant part in this development goes to data science initiatives, which are building talent and paving way for the advancement of various spheres of business. The importance of data science initiatives emerges from the lack of data science talent, which the initiatives aim to overcome. In the process, these initiatives are advancing the industry and making life better.
