DSF in Talks with US Universities to Develop DSAT for Data Scientists

Kolkata-headquartered Data Science Foundation (DSF), governed by council members from companies like Viacom18, Microsoft, Business Brio, IIM B, ANZ, Northern Trust, Honeywell, among others, is in advanced stage of discussions with at least two leading US universities and a couple of premier academic institutes in the world to develop a unique assessment system called- DSAT, on the lines of GMAT to help top talents (globally) gauge their technical skill and competence levels in data science, ensuring a fair and transparent evaluation process.

Moves are afoot to turn it into a globally accepted assessment system. The assessment will be absolutely in sync with NASSCOM Data Science curriculum pack (QPs) and will also be in accordance with ISO WG9 (Big Data Analytics working group) and SC42 (artificial intelligence sub-committee) anyways, said Gautam Banerjee, president DSF. DSF will be the independent governing body for building, deploying and constantly upgrading this intervention.

“For a practitioner who is looking for a career in data science, taking this test would help him/her understand the subject in totality and also enable him/her to reflect on the areas of development. This would also help him/her to be confident in taking interviews. And for organizations, looking at hiring data scientists, this can be used as a one-stop-shop to understand the technical skill of a candidate, as sometimes this is not very easy and straightforward,” said Banerjee. Interestingly, to build this evaluation process and administer it may not be logistically possible for individual organization and therefore the evaluation of a candidate depends solely on the hiring manager, which may not be an ideal and sustainable model.

Significantly, for the first time in the world, DSF has also initiated moves to lead development of the Analytics Maturity Model under the arm of WG9 and SC42 under the ISO. DSF has recently rolled out the world’s first survey of its kind on ‘Data Science-based Innovations’ across Mexico, Europe & India in collaboration with Zurich based consulting corporation LAA FOR 150+ companies. 

DSF, supported by NASSCOM, STPI and the West Bengal Government IT Department, organized the 7th International Data Science Summit in Kolkata which was attended by more than 250 senior-level delegates from across the world.

Banerjee said while the opportunities of using and applying data science are enormous, there are some threats attached to it also. DSF is working on to stop mis-selling of data science and helping organisation study and learn from mistakes. On the vexed issue of privacy, he said there are certain issues related to privacy and there are some other issues related to ethics and we need to distinguish between the two. India also needs to have something on lines of the GDPR Act, EU to address the issues, he said.

The 7th International Data Science Summit in Kolkata was inaugurated by Shri Debasish Sen, Additional Chief Secretary, IT& E, government of West Bengal, who was the chief guest on the occasion, in the presence of Mr. Nirupam Chaudhuri, Nasscom East – Head and Shri Gautam Banerjee President, Data Science Foundation. They were multiple sessions, Which had eminent experts as panelist. Coveted speakers constituted names such as Suranjan Som, Hitachi Consulting UK, Ujjyaini Mitra, Head of Data, Zee5, Sankha Mukherjee, SVP & Head Analytics, HSBC , Sridhar Sukumar, founder,  GanyQ Consulting, Dr Myrna Flores, Co-founder & President, Lean Analytics Association, Zurich, Dr Poulomi Ganguly, Hughes Global Education, Dr Vineet Basotia, Global Director, Analytics, GE Healthcare, Dr. Sheela Siddappa, Global Head, Data Science, Bosch, Sharmila Das, IBM (Cognitive and AI), Joy Mustafi, Director & Principal Researcher, Salesforce, Kaustav Majumdar, Director, Data Science Foundation, Soma Banerjee, Director, Data Brio Academy, Mainak Sen.