Designing a Program on Data Science while supporting Faculty Capacity Building in Latin America

With the advent of Internet and the rising amount of data new technologies produce, data scientists are in-demand professionals, increasing the need for state-of-the-art, cross-disciplinary Data Science programs. However, many universities do not yet have adequate personnel to staff such programs or lack the methodologies that facilitate the teaching-learning process. To address this need, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Abdul Latif Jameel World Education Lab (MIT J-WEL) is collaborating with the Government of Uruguay, by supporting development of a framework to guide a blended graduate program in data science, machine learning and entrepreneurship.
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This novel framework integrates physical and digital learning environments. It combines asynchronous online material from the MITx Statistics and Data Science MicroMasters®, accompanied by MITx entrepreneurship courses. In parallel it introduces the core concept of synchronous online mentoring session, complemented by a series of in-person workshops. Finally, concurrent with other program elements, the framework focuses on development of expert Uruguayan faculty who will be able to educate data science professionals in the future.

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The program is strongly interdisciplinary and the content for online mentoring sessions and in-person workshops is under development by MIT researchers and staff, with attention to specific audience and local context. Target students for the program are digital native professionals, with 60 learners in the first cohort. The program began in May 2019 and lasts 15 months. This paper describes this multifaceted framework that is particularly designed to educate a new generation of data scientists while in parallel developing expert faculty capacity in Uruguay.

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