Free data science mentorship program will help bolster Alberta businesses

Today, Cybera launched the Data Science for Albertans Industry Fellowship program. This program will help small-to-medium sized businesses tackle industry problems by pairing them with emerging data scientists who are looking for in-the-field experience.

The four-week industry fellowships, which are being run with support from the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences (PIMS), bring together six companies wanting to leverage data science, and 22 newly trained data scientists in Edmonton and Calgary. The companies have presented a challenge they are facing, such as the need to increase productivity or drive external sales, as well as the datasets they have collected to respond to this challenge. This information is then provided to groups of four data science fellows who, together with Cybera experts, will produce a data-driven prototype application or solution that the company can use.

Data science fellows in Edmonton meet with the company whose challenge they will be working on for 4 weeks.

The fellows (eight in Edmonton and 14 in Calgary) come from a diverse range of professional backgrounds, including post-graduate students as well as engineers looking to re-skill. Each is hoping to gain applicable real-world experience from this program in order to kick-start their career in data science.

โ€œData sciences have caused emerging companies to flourish at a rapid rate,โ€ says Dr. David Chan, project manager for the Data Science for Albertans program. โ€œAs Alberta looks to diversify its economy, this field will play an integral role in that vision. The province will need talented experts in new data analytics technologies, such as machine learning, who also have hands-on experience and strong success stories, to propel it forward. That is what the Data Science for Albertans Industry Fellowship program is focused on achieving.โ€

The fellowships will finish with a demonstration showcase on Friday, August 30, at the two satellite workspaces within the University of Calgary and the University of Alberta.

For further information about the Data Science for Albertans program, visit cybera.ca/datascience.

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