ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

Proper Fusion of Technical and Business Courses

THE ABOITIZ SCHOOL

The Aboitiz School of Innovation, Technology, & Entrepreneurship (ASITE) was established in November 2017 and is the newest school of the Asian Institute of Management. This is where fitter-ready leaders are honed and nurtured.

Vision

ASITE is positioned right at the intersection of innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship. It seeks to develop future-ready leaders who thrive in uncertainty and can confidently execute plans that address the challenges of Industry 4.0.

Mission

By collocating innovators, data scientists, and entrepreneurs, ASITE acts as a catalyst for generating impact, powering innovation, and creating value in the Asian context.

MSDS EDUCATION JOURNEY

To fully adapt in this era of big data and digitization, the Master of Science in Data Science (MSDS) program trains its students to be innovative data-driven leaders who can meet the demands and needs of various global institutions. 

Through the MSDS’ holistic approach, students are exposed to different data science tools and methods and are taught various algorithms and models to make predictive analysis and derive data-driven decisions. They also learn from practitioners in the field especially in building data strategies to help jumpstart organizations in their data-driven journeys and in managing data science teams.  MSDS students also engage with different organizations to work on real-world data science use-cases as junior data science consultants.  

By the end of the program, MSDS students will become:  

  • Critical data-driven thinkers and decision-makers.
  • Data Science practitioners
  • Effective communicators
  • Ethical and effective team players

THE PROGRAM (15 MONTHS)

TERM 1

  • INTRODUCTION TO DATA SCIENCE
  • PROGRAMMING FOR DATA SCIENCE
  • MATHEMATICS FOR DATA SCIENCE
  • DATA VISUALIZATION AND STORYTELLING
  • MANAGEMENT COMMUNICATIONS

TERM 2

  • MACHINE LEARNING I
  • APPLIED COMPUTATIONAL STATISTICS
  • DATA MINING AND WRANGLING I
  • MARKETING IN THE DIGITAL ECONOMY
  • LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS
  • DESIGNING TECH-DRIVEN CORPORATE PROCESSES

TERM 3

  • MACHINE LEARNING II
  • DATA MINING AND WRANGLING II
  • FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
  • ECONOMICS FOR STRATEGY AND MANAGEMENT
  • ELECTIVE

TERM 4

  • MACHINE LEARNING III
  • BIG DATA AND CLOUD COMPUTING
  • INNOVATION MANAGEMENT WITH DESIGN THINKING
  • DSAI ELECTIVE
  • CAPSTONE I

TERM 5

  • NETWORK SCIENCE
  • ETHICS AND LAW IN AI
  • LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE MANAGEMENT
  • DSAI ELECTIVE
  • GENERAL MANAGEMENT ELECTIVE
  • CAPSTONE II

ELECTIVES

  • DATA ENGINEERING
  • ADVANCED DATA MINING
  • NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING ELECTIVES
  • TIME SERIES ANALYSIS
  • INTRO TO IMAGE PROCESSING
  • INTRO TO GEOSPATIAL ANALYTICS
  • MACHINE LEARNING OPERATIONS
  • COMPLEXITY SCIENCE

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN DATA SCIENCE

DSAI COURSES

CORE GENERAL MANAGEMENT COURSES

ELECTIVES

CAPSTONE PROJECTS with REAL-WORLD USE CASES

The MSDS capstone project is one of the key features of the program that makes it quite unique. It is a culminating activity where students take on live projects tackling real-world problems from various companies, organizations, and government agencies for which there are no existing solutions.

Here, students do not just jump straight into model building; instead, they go through the entire data science project workflow — from writing project proposals, to data extraction, data mining, and building AI models, to model/platform deployment.

In this exercise, MSDS students are trained as data science consultants. As part of their training, they work closely with world-class professors,domain experts, and full-time data scientists at Analytics, Computing, and Complex Systems lab of AIM (ACCeSs).

Since 2019, the MSDS program, with the help of ACCeSs, has completed 56 projects with various organizations, delivering business, economic, and social value. The estimated potential ROI provided by stakeholders has reached Php 4.43B or about US$ 80 million. This does not yet include the socio-economic impact of completed policy-related MSDS capstone projects.

THE CAPSTONE PROJECT PROCESS

  1. industry, government, and/or international organizations submit use cases to MSDS program. 
  2. A call for proposals from students is opened. 
  3. Interested student team submits proposals. 
  4. Stakeholders and data scientists review the proposals. 
  5. A project is awarded to teams; this will be the research topic of students. 

The Outcome: Real Business Value Generated

In 2020, the MSDS program received over 25 real-world use cases from various organizations and enterprises, 15 of which made it to the program portfolio. Partners and stakeholders estimated a total potential revenue of about US $40 million from these projects.  

In 2019, this estimate was at US $10 million for 10 capstone projects. Indeed, through the program’s partnerships, MSDS students become data science consultants even while studying; at the same time, the program gets to help organizations innovate through data science and machine learning. 

Capstone Industry Partners’ Interview