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Data-scientist career field crowned ‘sexiest job of the 21st century’
Here’s a quick pop quiz: What career has been crowned “the sexiest job of the 21st Century?” by the Harvard Business Review? Actor? Model? Professional athlete? Fashion designer? All are likely answers — and all are wrong. Would you believe the answer is data scientist?
As the world becomes more digital, the supply of trained professionals who understand data science remains woefully behind. The United States alone faces a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with analytical expertise, and 1.5 million managers and analysts with the skills to understand and make decisions based on the analysis of big data.
The demand for data scientists is so great that Intel’s chief data scientist for big data solutions, Bob Rogers, recently hosted a panel to discuss the opportunities awaiting new and current professionals in data science.
“Data scientists are having an impact on industries all across the globe,” he said. “Wherever you want to work, you can get there with data science.”
If you’re interested in learning more about the day-to-day work of this “sexiest job of the 21st century,” here are three diverse examples of some of the data-science work being done today.
Oregon Health & Science University. Medical research is moving in exciting new directions with the help of data scientists. Oregon Health & Science University and Intel recently announced the Collaborative Cancer Cloud, a precision medicine-analytics platform designed to harness the combined potential of patient genome, imaging and clinical data from hospitals and research institutions. This data could advance scientific research and help physicians make potentially lifesaving discoveries one day.
Booz Allen Hamilton. Professional sports have always been rich in player and team statistics. These statistics are now augmented by analytical models of player performance, comprehensive digital video recordings of every league event and digital fan experiences such as fantasy leagues. Booz Allen Hamilton’s data-science team delivers value in all of these dimensions of sports — on-field player performance, off-the-field team strategy and fan engagement — by exploring and exploiting those rich data collections through open-source technologies and advanced analytics algorithms.
Caesars Entertainment. One of the most famous casinos in the world relies on data-analytics professionals and analysis to improve customer experience across its establishments. Today, Caesars can run faster and more accurate analysis to gain maximum value from all of its data sources, which improves security and the customer experience the business can deliver to everyone that enters its doors.
Professionals in all of these areas combine technical know-how with superior communication skills, strong business sense and intellectual curiosity. If you possess these skills, a career as a data scientist may be a great fit. Even if data science isn’t the job for you, it will be exciting to see what innovations big-data analytics will enable us to uncover in the future.