Stellenbosch University (SU) has formally opened the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking in an effort to expand and modernise its academic curricula.
At the school’s launch event, held at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study in South Africa (STIAS) on 29 July, SU Rector and Vice-Chancellor Prof Wim de Villiers remarked that “the world is changing fast,” and that the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking was SU’s “stake in the unfolding future.”
Data science — the field on which the school focuses — refers to the challenge of obtaining meaningful information from large amounts of raw data, known as “big data”.
The field has become increasingly important over the past decade, with businesses in South Africa and abroad looking for deeper analytics and better insights which their data can show about the market.
“The function of analysing data to create data-driven insights in important for any size of business,” says Dr Yudhvir Seetharam, head of analytics at First National Bank (FNB) and senior lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand.
“Data science does and will help businesses in maximising revenue through finding the best means of selling products to customers, and lowering costs by finding ways of optimising production processes,” he adds.
With a rapidly-growing demand for data science skills in South African businesses, SU hopes to position itself at the forefront of training and research in the field. In order to achieve this, the School for Data Science and Computational Thinking was created as a trans-faculty institution with degree programmes focusing on data science from different disciplines at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
By 2021, SU expects to have introduced a new degree programme called BDataSci (Bachelor of Data Science), which is to be based in the new school.
The SU School for Data Science and Computational Thinking, located on Banghoek Road in Stellenbosch, is expected to add two new degree programmes in 2020. PHOTO: Byron Mühlberg
Commenting on the increase in the number of data science programmes on offer in South African universities and colleges, Dr Seetharam says that “more of this is needed, as the data scientist requires on a mix of technical skills (such as computer science, mathematics, statistics) as well as communication and business skills.”
In a video message marking the launch of the school, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology Blade Nzimande said that “data science is a young profession and academic discipline,” and stressed the importance of training the youth in the “skills of the future which include, among others, robotics, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles and 3D-printing.”
“I am confident that our new School for Data Science and Computational Thinking is Stellenbosch University’s answer to this challenge,” says De Villiers. “We are committed to going forward with all stakeholders – government, industry, other universities and civil society – to the mutual benefit of all.”