Source: newindianexpress.com

CHENNAI: With the first batch of 30 students of the Inter-Disciplinary Dual Degree (IDDD) programme on Data Science, of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, all set to complete their course, the Institute has decided to increase the number of seats of the programme, said a statement issued by the Institute.

IIT Madras had introduced the programme in 2015 with an aim to tackle the shortage of data scientists in the country. Looking at the rising demand of data science among students and industries, the institute has decided to increase the number of seats in the programme. Officials in IIT-M said soon, a decision will be taken on the exact number of seats.

“Owing to the positive response from the industry as well as demand from the students, we are planning to almost double the number of seats in IDDD Data Science,” said the statement.

The students will have a Bachelor’s degree in the major they opted for when they joined, as well as a Master’s degree in Data Science, enabling them to apply their Data Science skills to solve problems in their parent discipline. This is a one-of-its-kind interdisciplinary programme in the country, providing students with a strong foundation in both, their parent discipline, as well as frontier areas of data science. The graduating students are uniquely trained to fulfil the rapidly increasing need for data science and artificial intelligence professionals in the Indian industry, said the statement.

Speaking about the programme’s importance, B Ravindran, the course coordinator said, “Data Science is greatly impacting every discipline and the graduates of this programme, who, by virtue of their interdisciplinary training, are well equipped to be leaders in a digital world.”