Another University Adds Big Data To Their Syllabus

On Monday, the Technical University of Denmark announced the details of its new specialist programme in Data Science (Big Data). From as early as autumn semester, DTU will be offering the course to students, where they will build interdisciplinary skills across the entire Big Data value chain — data collection, data storage, data analysis, visualization, data security and privacy, and data application.

Marianne Thellersen, DTU’s Senior Vice President Innovation and Entrepreneurship, said,

“As an elite university, we consider it important to accommodate the increasing demands from the labour market for skilled graduates adept at working with—and generating value from—Big Data. We are therefore delighted that, in partnership with the business community, we are now in a position to provide a completely new programme profile to students keen to build up a strong skill set with Big Data as their area of specialization at advanced international level. We expect the new graduates from the programme to have the capacity to generate innovation and establish new areas of business that will ultimately create new jobs in Denmark.”

Students will have the opportunity to choose the programme via the MSc Computer Science and Engineering, Mathematical Modelling and Computation and Digital Media Engineering streams. The course has been developed by both the DTU and the Danish business sector to ensure “the quality and relevance of the education.” Some of the companies involved in the development of the course are IBM, Maersk Maritime Technology, and Vestas Wind Systems.

“We at Vestas work to generate value from huge data volumes—from more than 35,000 turbines and our supercomputers, for example—on a daily basis,” said Anders Rhod Gregersen, Chief Specialist at Vestas Wind Systems A/S. “There is currently no dedicated study programme that covers the data challenges we face in our everyday work situation. For this reason, we welcome DTU’s Data Science programme profile, and we look forward to working with future graduates.”