DOST offers scholarship for online data science courses

MANILA — The Department of Science and Technology – Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD) on Monday renewed its call for scholarship applications for Filipinos interested in entering the field of data science.

In a statement, PCIEERD said taking the online training is a good way for qualified Filipinos “to maximize their time at home amid the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Dubbed Smarter Philippines through Data Analytics Research and Development, Training and Adoption (Project SPARTA), the project involves attending free online classes of the Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP) and the Analytics Association of the Philippines (AAP) through the online learning platform Coursebank.

“We put weight on this initiative as we believe that data science can ultimately change and boost government processes, for the benefit of each Filipino; and even solve some of our country’s major problems,” said DOST-PCIEERD executive director Dr. Enrico Paringit.

Paringit said they target to train 30,000 Filipinos to make them "capable to handle big data generated by the different government agencies as well as other entities in the country.”

Those who qualify for the online training are Filipinos permanently based in the country who have at least graduated from senior high school, with or without prior knowledge on data science and analytics.

Through Project SPARTA, they can learn “essential data science and analytics knowledge, and skills to efficiently manage, analyze and interpret data.”

Enrollees may choose one of the six “pathways”:

1. Data Associate – They gather, process, and analyze data and prepares reports that highlight relevant trends and other significant results. They also provide some information on observable trends and patterns that help senior analysts and managers easily identify opportunities for follow-up in-depth analysis.

2. Data Steward - They are responsible for ensuring that an organization’s data is well-defined, managed, and ready to use for downstream reporting, analytics, modeling, or even artificial intelligence (AI) use cases. Essentially, they are the gatekeepers of data, working to improve data quality; ensure data acquisition, usage, maintenance, access, and security, in compliance with policies, rules, regulations, and ethical practice.

3. Data Engineer - They are the builders and managers of data workflows, pipelines, ETL processes, and platforms and are mainly responsible for the management of the entire data lifecycle: ingestion, processing, surfacing, and storage.

4. Data Analyst – They leverage reporting, data analysis, and modelling techniques to solve problems and gather insight across functional domains. They also analyze data and assess requirement from a business perspective related to an organization’s overall system.

5. Data Scientist - They are specialists who apply their expertise in statistics and building machine learning models, enriched with programming, to make predictions and answer key business questions. Data scientists create sophisticated analytical models used to build new datasets and derive new insights for data.

6. Analytics Manager - They oversee analytical operations and communicate insights to executives. Analytics managers translate analytical results to actionable business items. Their role is to drive business outcomes, bridging technical expertise from steward, engineer, scientist and analyst with the operational expertise of the business functions.

According to DOST-PCIEERD, each pathway takes 6 months to finish. Scholars are also allowed to pursue another pathway after finishing one.

The agency said there are already 10,700 scholars under Project SPARTA, mostly between the ages 18 to 34.

The most popular pathways are Data Scientist and Data Associate.

Of the more than 10,000 scholars, 58% are working for private companies, 17% are from government agencies, and the rest are students and faculty members. More than half (57%) are female.

“Filipinos can benefit from learning about data science in at least two ways: one, through the employment opportunities for our data scientists, and two, by harnessing their expertise in solving socio-economic problems at the national and local levels, as well as creating public and customer value through new products, improved services, and evidence-based policies,” said Dr. Alan Cajes, DAP senior executive fellow and Project SPARTA project leader.

Both Cajes and Paringit are hopeful that data science can help improve Philippine society.

“Data science is like a swiss army knife that has multiple functions—catching fraud and tax evasion detection, human and national security, street crime awareness, and resource management, all of which can help us improve the life of the Filipinos,” Paringit said.

He pointed out that data science tools have already proven their usefulness now that the world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Epidemiological analysis and disease surveillance are currently prime areas where data science had shown their mettle. However, as we transition to post-lockdown era, the global business community and governments are going to need skills that are able to make sense of what happened and present economic, business and industrial scenarios that can help us all move forward," he added.

"Possessing data science skills are therefore crucial now, more than ever."

Those who enroll in Project SPARTA are required to finish a capstone project to highlight what they have learned.

DOST-PCIEERD said it can fund the projects through their Good Governance through Data Science and Decision Support System (GODDESS) Program.

Those interested in applying for the scholarship can visit https://sparta.dap.edu.ph/.

Queries can be sent to learn@coursebank.ph while those interested in submitting proposals for funding (deadline on May31) can visit https://dpmis.dost.gov.ph/.

- With a report from Kristine Sabillo, ABS-CBN News