How to Train a Data Scientist for the Global South
Eeva Nygren, Martti Sutinen, Tomi Westerlund, Erkki Sutinen · IST-Africa Week Conference · 2018
The extensive use of mobile devices and modern technologies has led to the expansion of amount and quality of data in the Global South. With the help of professional data scientists, developing countries could benefit from big data effectively and leapfrog from traditional methods of data generation to modern data handling methods without going through the same process as in wealthier regions. The sky-high demand for data scientists is due to the enormous business value that they can bring to the table, deriving deep learning from the big data. In this paper, we give one solution how to train a data scientist for the Global South where data scientists face partly different challenges as their colleagues in the Global North. Based on more than ten years of collaboration in ICT education with various African partners, we developed the general framework for an innovative BSc degree programme in computer science with specialisation in data science including two essential threads - learning-by-being and learning-by-doing. Only by combining learning to both doing and being, we can train data scientists that are able to change the target context in a profound way. A built-in research program on the data science training increase Global South – North collaboration, which in turn combined with open collaboration and flexible way of overcoming hierarchical boundaries most probably leads to the innovative joint ventures.