The Closing Event for this year’s The Data Lab MSc cohort took place on Wednesday 24th at BAaD in Glasgow. About 90 of our students, along with 30 of their supporters, project supervisors, industry sponsors, course leaders and our funders, turned up for a celebration which showcased our programme, our community and all our students have achieved this year. We were also able to introduce The Data Lab Academy which aims to increase the impact of the MSc programme and open it up to new audiences, maintaining the flow of well qualified and work ready data graduates into Scotland’s economy. The Data Lab Academy also offers Scottish organisations the opportunity to partner with The Data Lab to grown the scope and impact of the programme.
The Data Lab MSc programme brings together students studying on MSc courses in Data Science/Engineering, AI and related subjects across Scotland to support their skills development and help them bridge the gap between data science in academia and data science in the real world.
Funding legacy lives on
There are so many things to celebrate this year including, as we heard from Rebecca Fairgrieve-Stewart, Senior Policy/Analysis Officer Scottish Funding Council, the stable and generous support from our funders the Scottish Government through the SFC/ESF-Developing Scotland’s Workforce funding over the last 8 years. This has given nearly 900 students the chance to develop their highly regarded data skills and gain jobs across the Scottish economy. The ESF funding comes to an end this year but its legacy lives on The Data Lab Academy of the future.
Sharing placement stories
With 50 students from the AY 21-22 cohort undertaking placements, we celebrated the support from the 39 organisations including Capita, Think Analytics, Nature Scot and The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, and others who have engaged students on paid industrial placements. Many thanks to our project award winners, Liam Bell, Andrew Lorimer and Kenneth Frempong (all Strathclyde University) and Michael McCall (RGU) for taking the time to record their placement/project journeys and for sharing their stories with us all at the event.
Impact of travel in trees
A key part of our MSc programme is an innovation week where we gather our students together to work collaboratively on a live business problem. This year’s challenge owner Visit Scotland proposed a pressing question about how the Scotland’s tourism industry can grow in a sustainable manner that positively impacts visitors, businesses, people communities and the environment.
After some fun design thinking and prototyping, the students were given access to data sets provided by Skyscanner, Scot Rail and Visit Scotland, asked to explore the data and come up with an innovative solution. Three short listed teams were invited to present their findings at The Closing Event.
The winners, The Know It Owls, came up with a great idea, a QR code to instantly show the impact of an individual’s travel decision in trees. Less impact, more trees saved. High level but there is definitely something in it! Well done Know It Owls, Cameron Brown (Strathclyde), Liam Horrobin (Heriot-Watt), Imogen Scott (Stirling) and Aliakse Ahhustsinovich (Edinburgh Napier).
Community at the core
If you were playing word bingo, the highest score of the event would be for “community”, which is at the core of everything we do at The Data Lab. And so it was fitting that after year one of the launch of our Community platform we were able to award a prize for the most engaged The Data Lab MSc student on the community. Well done Maria Bruevich (Edinburgh Napier), this is well deserved and we are sure you will treasure your prize tickets to Data Summit and your trophy which was crocheted by one of our community and MSc alumna Annie Sinclair.
With two brilliant keynote addresses, from Rachana Patel, Valid Insights (from MSc student to data leader in a year) and Andy McMahon from NatWest Group (with an inspiring presentation, scary and inspirational in equal parts) we definitely ended on a high note.
Thanks to everyone who came, contributed and supported our fabulous students who will now carry on our The Data Lab values into their new careers. Receiving such great feedback from our students makes it all worthwhile as we turn our attention to the launch of The Data Lab Academy and the class of AY 22-23.
“Tremendous support with employment prospects. Friendly, supportive and dynamic cohort. Thank you so much”
“Provided me with capacity to learn academically as well as a solid foundation for future prospects with a great support community. It works, keep it up – a friend heard of The Data Lab from me and he is now in this years cohort”.
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