“Data science – the ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex data sets” said DJ Patil, the first ever and current US Chief Data Scientist & Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy
If you ask my 12 year-old daughter who is the sexiest person, her answer will be Tiger Shroff. He’s an upcoming Bollywood star. It’s because of his six-pack abs and muscles.
But if I want to compete with this Bollywood star, albeit without the six-pack body, I may have to take up a new job: Data scientist. DJ Patil and Thomas H. Davenport first coined the word in 2008 and called it “the sexiest job of the 21st Century”. This year, Glassdoor a well-known recruiting site named data scientist the number one job in America.
Jokes aside, data scientist job is pretty daunting. His or her job is to make sense of large volume of data while being submerged in it. Forget excel spreadsheet. Think digital. According to IDC 2014 white paper on digital universe by 2020, the digital universe will contain nearly as many digital bits as there are stars in the universe or 44 trillion gigabytes. It’s not only the sheer volume of data, it’s the need to quickly analyze mainly unstructured data such as emails, photos, videos, voice and of course structured data. Data scientist role is to draw information from data, giving organization knowledge and insights (wisdom). Companies that can do this have wisdom that their competitors don’t.
To be successful, data scientist job requires specific skills set. Must have computer programming like python or R, excellent knowledge of statistics, strong business acumen, also loves to analyze things and be a great communicator. After all, data scientist job is to deliver insights to the audience and capturing their imagination. Data scientist is like the super hero of wisdom. They discover things that sometime even customers don’t know that they need!
Let me give you an example. Recently, I was on a trip with my elder daughter to Switzerland. Our plane was delayed for an hour. Her smart phone informed her of our flight delay. Hell, my wife knew before we did that our flight was delayed. She received periodic updates on flight status for up to 48 hours before our flight was to take off. (Let’s leave privacy issue for discussion on another day). To say that my wife was super impressed is an understatement. This is data science, it’s the ability to acquire, process and leverage the data in a timely fashion. It could be in the form of new products and services or better efficiencies.
Here comes the difficult part. There aren’t enough superheroes to take up data scientist jobs. According to McKinsey Global Institute, the US alone will have a shortage of 140,000+ data scientists by 2018. Top US schools have launched data science programs in recent years. Thailand has none, although Mahidol University Faculty of Science provides excellent online data science resources.
Other than looking for external hires and consultants, Thai companies should look at transitioning their top data analyst to data scientist, putting them through online courses (MOOCs) and assigning them to work on big data projects. This is where you bring in your HR to assist in your quest to master data science.
Suvit Chansrichawla, next-generation HR consultant under the brand Serendipity&Co., partner of the Curve Group in Thailand.
