Source: moneycontrol.com
Data science is one of the fastest growing industries in the country today. The growth of data and the advancements in technology have contributed to this unprecedented growth over the years. However, more than 60,000 Machine Learning jobs are vacant in India currently, according to various industry reports. The landscape of the tools and algorithms is changing every few years, which means that even the professionals in the industry need to take time out regularly for learning and staying up to date.
Analytics Vidhya, a community of Analytics and Data Science professional, recently conducted the DataHack Summit, in an attempt to address some of these gaps.
Kunal Jain, Founder & CEO at Analytics Vidhya, says, “Shortage of talent in data science with the right mix of other skills like high curiosity, structured thinking and domain knowledge is a big challenge today. All these skills are required in a data scientist to solve business problems and create an impact using data science and machine learning. Sadly, there aren’t enough people with all the skillsets in the industry.”
He says that while there are a lot of data science courses available in the market, they are not making people industry ready. Very few courses make professionals work on at least one real life industry problem. So, when these people come out of these courses, they still do not meet industry standards.
The need of the hour is to design industry relevant courses and platforms. Analytics Vidhya has created a Global Hackathon platform, among many other initiatives, which acts as a community platform to share ideas and solutions. It also has a Computer Adaptive Test which can test industry professionals in an adaptive manner. “Think of this like a GMAT for data science professionals,” says Jain.
Its flagship conference–DataHack Summit–brings together more than 1200 data science professionals and industry leaders from across the globe.
According to Jain, BFSI is the biggest recruiter of data experts in the country today. “The number of use cases in this field is incredible. They have been making data drive decisions since a long time. Data analytics technologies are helping banks to create personalised experiences for their customers, manage risks and Frauds in a far more robust and intelligent manner. I see this only increasing going forward in a manner that customers start expecting it from every bank and interaction with the bank,” Jain sums up.