by Angela Guess
According to a recent article out of the company, “IBM is expanding its academic initiative with a new program that infuses its natural-language-based Watson Analytics technology into the classroom to help professors teach students how to turn data into insights without needing in-depth knowledge of data science. IBM is also introducing a new student version of Watson Analytics that will put the power of cognitive computing into the hands of the next generation of business leaders as they prepare to enter the workforce. The skills gap in analytics is well known – not just in IT, but also across a wide range of job roles and functions. Recent research cited in Datanami indicates that the current demand for data scientists exceed the current supply by factor of three. To help meet the need, line of business managers are learning to launch complex analytics programs on their own; as Gartner predicts that the number of citizen data scientists will grow five times faster than the number of highly skilled data scientists through 2017.”
The article goes on, “IBM is helping to prepare the citizen data scientist of tomorrow with a new Watson Analytics Academic Program that can be used to help educate more than 140,000 students in qualified leading universities globally including Northwestern University, the College of William and Mary, Deakin University in Australia and many more. The new program provides qualified universities with an enablement kit that includes sample data sets; an online course; student workbooks; video tutorials and pre-packaged syllabi to help professors update their lesson plans. The program also includes a one-year license of Watson Analytics Professional Edition for up to 100 users at no cost.”
photo credit: IBM