Building a Data Science Program Through Hackathons and Informal Training in Puerto Rico

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Citation of Original Publication

Ordóñez Franco, Patricia, María Eglée Pérez Hernández, Humberto Ortiz-Zuazaga, and José García Arrarás. “Building a Data Science Program Through Hackathons and Informal Training in Puerto Rico.” In Leveraging Data Science for Global Health, edited by Leo Anthony Celi, Maimuna S. Majumder, Patricia Ordóñez, Juan Sebastian Osorio, Kenneth E. Paik, and Melek Somai, 453–67. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47994-7_29.

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Attribution 4.0 International

Abstract

With the growth of data in a plethora of fields ranging from agriculture to medicine to finance, data science is quickly becoming one of the most in demand professional careers of the decade. However, only a handful of minority serving institutions in the US have a course much less a formal program or certification track in data science. This paper highlights a solution at a public minority serving institution, which is in a hiring freeze, to create an interdisciplinary data science program using local resources through both formal and informal training and hackathons in collaboration with top research institutions and industry leaders locally and abroad in data science.