Over 364,000 data science jobs to be created in India by 2020: IIT-M

In a revelation report by the Indian Institute of Technology Madras it was known that India presently is facing an acute shortage of data scientists.

The acclaimed institution has said that it is providing a major boost to tackle that shortage of Data Scientists in India.

IIT M says that the First Batch of 30 students to complete its Inter-Disciplinary Dual Degree (IDDD) program on Data Science are all set to appear for campus placements shortly. IIT Madras also says that it is planning to almost double the number of seats in IDDD Data Science owing to the positive response from the industry as well as demand from the students.

According to a study of the Artificial Intelligence and Data Science job market, 40 percent of global companies struggle to hire and retain data scientists.  One-Third of the top 400 Indian companies lack state-of-the-art Data Analysis Tools and Personnel.

Further, the study estimated that 364,000 new jobs will be created in Data Science/Artificial Intelligence by 2020 in India. However, another study estimated that India had only around 80 full-fledged researchers (as of 2018) in Data Sciences.

With the tremendous availability of large volumes of data across several domains, there has been an explosion of interest in all aspects of handling and understanding data. Data Science is bringing together all aspects of technology required for gathering, storing, analyzing and understanding data. This includes storage technology, distributed computing, data-driven modeling, data analytics and mining, visualization and security, among others. Given that proper interpretation and modeling require good domain understanding this becomes an inherently interdisciplinary endeavor.

With a massive curriculum overhaul in 2015, IIT Madras is now offering great flexibility to students, giving them the opportunity to take courses across disciplines, and build towards expertise in modern interdisciplinary areas that will define the future of engineering and technology.

IIT M says that the goal of its IDDD program on Data Science is to give basic background to students from different disciplines in data science and provide ample opportunity for them to specialize in a particular aspect of data science through the electives and the project. This course will prepare students to become applied Data Scientists and also prepare them for pursuing higher studies.