Following the success of last year’s Data Lab MSc. Placement Programme, MBN Solutions has confirmed it has been selected as partner for the 2017/18 MSc. intake.
MBN will deliver a tailored suite of employability training to funded students, and will then work with these students to identify and secure data-specific industrial placements at a broad spectrum of leading Scottish businesses.
Last year’s programme saw students working with leading Scottish based businesses such as Aquila Insight, STV, Aggreko, Morgan Stanley, NHS, Glasgow City Council and Virgin Money for a 10-12 weeks’ work placement designed to enhance their commercial, technical and domain expertise.
This year’s programme has grown to 130 funded students, across 11 Scottish Universities. The commitment underlines the growing recognition of the need to deliver workplace-ready data skills into Scotland’s business communities. The company said programme will ensure the continued availability of some of the very best work place ready and talented data scientists to Scottish businesses and the public sector.
“We are proud to have been appointed again to this prestigious contract. Scotland has some of the most talented and skilled data practitioners in the world and this Programme will ensure they are available, first and foremost, to Scottish businesses” said MBN Solutions chief executive, Michael Young. “Working in partnership with The Data Lab allows us to help find the most appropriate and effective placements for these rising data stars in environments where their skills can make a transformational difference.”
All students on The Data Lab MSc are offered a paid, credit-bearing industrial placement. The 40 additional places this year will all be offered their placement with organisations based throughout Scotland. This is linked to the funding and the aim of encouraging direct employment for students following their placement and creating additional jobs in the area.
Joshua Ryan-Saha, The Data Lab’s skills programme manager, said: “A group of 130 elite MSc data scientists will be tasked with solving real-life issues and generating economic impact to Scotland through data analysis. This ambitious competition is part of the pioneering MSc Programme devised by Scottish Innovation Centre, The Data Lab. The budding data post graduates will be charged with using datasets unique to Scotland to develop new insights, ideas, products, services or processes that will deliver social or economic benefit.”
“The MSc Placement Programme represents an opportunity for MBN to work collaboratively with both our partners in industry and our academic colleagues to deliver best-in-class Employability skills to Scotland’s Data Science community” said Robin Huggins, head of MBN Academy at MBN Solutions. “We are delighted with the success of last year’s exercise, with many of the students involved now having transitioned to permanent roles within Scottish businesses, and we look forward to this year’s outcomes.”
Jonathan Cameron, head of service, strategic development at NHS National Services Scotland, added: “NHS National Services Scotland took on 4 MSc students from the Datalab Data Science programme in May and all four students have successfully delivered projects and work to help the NHS understand our data better. The overall experience has been very positive and the students have made a big difference to us and the work that we do for the citizens of Scotland. Working with MBN Solutions has also been great and MBN have been supportive throughout. We are looking forward to another intake next year!”
