Data science industry fellowship helps Albertans gain real-world experience

Cybera, in partnership with Alberta Innovates, has resumed its Data Science Industry Fellowships that was successfully piloted in 2019. The program, which commenced today, helps emerging data scientists (fellows) gain employment opportunities by providing them with real-world data science experience. In parallel, the fellowships support Alberta-based organizations in adopting data science projects that will help them increase returns, create jobs, and improve efficiencies.

The program will be run in several separate “sprints” during the late summer and early fall. In each four week sprint, Cybera will pair four budding data science fellows with an organization — selected by Alberta Innovates — that is looking to solve an emerging data science problem.

Working with Lakeland College to improve dairy efficiency

The first sprint will see four fellows (two from Calgary and two from Edmonton) working remotely with Lakeland College’s Dairy Learning Centre. The goal of the project is to leverage data collected from the centre to compare a traditional milking parlour (a building where cows are milked) with a robotic milker, to see if there are ways to improve efficiencies in the dairy production process. Using data science, the team will look for ways to reduce the amount of water and energy that is used, which will also lower the environmental impact and cost of milk production.

Similar to the fellowships that occurred in 2019, Cybera’s data scientists will provide mentorship to the fellows, including workshops to improve their machine learning and cloud skills. The 2019 program paired 22 budding data scientists with six Alberta-based companies looking for support with an internal data project. Through the program, the companies —including the Edmonton-based legal claims support platform, PainWorth— were able to create proof-of-concepts to improve their efficiencies and expand their market research. All the participating fellows have since said that the program made them more competitive in the job market.

Applications to participate in future fellowship sprints are currently closed. Those who applied before July 10, 2020, will be carried over to the selection process for the next cohort. If you are an early-career data scientist who is interested in participating in future fellowships, visit Cybera’s Data Science for Albertans web page to find out when the next series will be announced.

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