With the advent of social media and the dawn of the digital age, businesses are now confronted with an intimidating amount and variety of information that they never had to deal with before. Here emerged a strong and pressing demand for a new kind of talent that can keep pace with the rapid acceleration of the digital era. At the rate this fairly new industry is growing, the talent for analytics is urgently needed—one which the academe is yet to supply.
UA&P took on the challenge. In collaboration with the Analytics Association of the Philippines (AAP), the UA&P School of Management launched the Master in Applied Business Analytics (MABA), the first graduate program in analytics in the Philippines. This program is designed for experienced professionals in any industry who would want to seize the power of data to improve the business performance of their respective organizations. This is in addition to what the University already offers to undergraduate students, the Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Major in Management with Specialization in Business Analytics (BSBA-BA). The first batch of BSBA-BA students will graduate this August 2018.
“It is the goal of UA&P to equip its students with the training they need today so as to meet the demand of tomorrow,” said Dr. Bernardo Villegas, renowned economist and co-founder of the University. “It is in this light that the ingenuity of the University can be seen since what the MBA was for the 90s, MABA could very well be for the 21st century.”
Dr. Brenda Quismorio, program director of MABA, explained that it takes a strategic process and unified views of business analytics to create value with an applied and experience-building approach. “What is unique to MABA,” she added, “is its blend of the various disciplines of mathematics, statistics, computer science, information technology, business and management, communications, law, and ethics and humanities for analytics applied to business.”
The new program was shaped by both industry demand and internal collaboration. In February 2018, AAP was founded to develop the ecosystem that will make the Philippines a data-driven country, globally competitive in analytics, and a leading source of analytics talent for the good of society. Its founding Board of Trustees are Colin Christie, Sherwin Pelayo, Dominic Ligot, Michelle Alarcon, Rex Jalao, Karlo Panti, and Dr. Quismorio, who sits as its Executive Director.
In connection with this, two business analytics conferences were held in UA&P, the first on February 3, 2017 and the second on April 18, 2018. The first conference identified the needs of the industry, which the academe had to incorporate in their curriculum. The second conference, organized by AAP in partnership with UA&P, aimed to educate the public about the analytics framework formulated by AAP. The competencies in data science and analytics (DSA) and the job roles in analytics were taken up in the conference.
The latter conference was influenced by international gatherings attended by the MABA program director. The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Project DARE (Data Analytics Raising Employment) transpired last May 4, 2017 in Singapore. Fifty representatives from its member economies defined the 10 DSA competencies: domain knowledge and application, data management and governance, operational analytics, data visualization and presentation, research methods, data engineering principles, statistical techniques, data analytics methods and algorithms, computing, and the 21st century skills.
Then in June 2017, the 3rd EDISON Champions Conference was held in Poland. It showcased how European universities implement the Edison Data Science Framework (EDSF). The EDSF serves as the platform for the academe to craft their DSA curricula and for the employers to define job profiles. The use of a common framework helps narrow the gap between the demand and the supply of DSA professionals.
MABA aims not only to meet the growing demand for people with technical competencies, but also to provide sought-after professionals schooled with humanist standpoints. True to its tagline “We Make Data Serve People,” the program aims to benefit not only the professionals, the corporations, and their clients, but more importantly, the entire society.
MABA accepts applications until July 28, 2018. For inquiries, call MABA at (+632) 637-0912 local 237 or email at [email protected].
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