AIM WELCOMES BIGGEST BATCH OF FUTURE DATA SCIENCE LEADERS
The Asian Institute of Management (AIM) Aboitiz School of Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship (ASITE) recently welcomed 72 Master of Science in Data Science (MSDS) students, making the MSDS Class of 2021 the biggest cohort since its inception. AIM is expected to transform the students into future data science leaders who are equipped with both the needed technical and business/general management skills through its rigorous 14-month full-time degree program.
The third MSDS cohort consists of a diverse mix of students representing 3 countries: Philippines, India, and Colombia. Over 40% of the cohort are engineering graduates, while 15% of them are from physics, 12% from mathematics and statistics, and 12% from economics, business, and management backgrounds from the top universities in the Philippines.
“Data science cuts across industries,” remarked AIM President and Dean Dr. Jikyeong Kang. “AIM prides itself on being a pioneer when it comes to Asian business education. Early on, we realized that data science is essential for industries to thrive in the era of Industry 4.0. As an academic institution, we must provide quality education for talented individuals in the fastest-growing and most sought-after specialization worldwide.”
In 2018, AIM made history as it launched the first-ever data science graduate degree program in the Philippines, and one of the firsts in the region.
According to research from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), over 340,880 data science and analytics workers will be needed in the Philippines alone by 2022.
“The rigorous training our students go through directly addresses a pain-point of the enterprise —when technical experts cannot provide actionable insights to stakeholders and decision-makers,” said Dr. Erika Fille Legara, MSDS Academic Program Director and Aboitiz Chair in Data Science. “MSDS properly fuses the technical and business and management courses and reflects the latest trends and best practices in the field.”
MSDS has consistently been part of the Top 3 in Far East Asia in Eduniversal’s Best Masters Ranking in Data Analytics since its launch.
“We are not training students to just be machine learning or artificial intelligence engineers or the typical data scientists we are more familiar with, but we are training them to be data science leaders,” Dr. Legara stated.
Currently, the population of future data scientists at AIM has soared to more than 170 students, a significant leap from the pioneering batch of 42 students on the same day of the program’s 2nd anniversary.
“Our shared vision is to reverse brain drain and further develop the field of analytics and data science in the country,” shared Dr. Christopher Monterola, Aboitiz Chair in Data Science, ASITE Head, and Executive Managing Director of the Analytics, Computing, and Complex Systems Laboratory (ACCeSs@AIM). “I believe that we were off to a really good start; and now we are scaling. We acknowledge that this accelerated growth would not have been possible if not for the generosity of Aboitiz Group.”
Last year, the Aboitiz Group made a historic P500 million endowment to AIM, which allowed AIM to provide zero-percent interest loans for deserving but financially challenged students.
“We try to instill a strong sense of nation-building in each one of our graduates. We still have a long way to going terms of creating critical mass, but we are making significant strides creating future data science leaders, in Asia, for the world,” Dr. Monterola concluded.