At a time when analytics industry is going through a talent crunch and upskilling is the case du jure  — Bengaluru-based TEG Analytics, analytics outsourcing company leaned on edtech startup Jigsaw Academy to solve industry use cases with anonymized data in the form of Capstone projects. The partnership — a win-win proposition provided TEG Analytics with ready solutions which could be implemented and also enabled Jigsaw Academy’s Postgraduate Program in Data Science and Machine Learning (PGPDM) students a chance to cut teeth on industry data and be mentored by a senior TEG Analytics member.

In line with its code-first and hands-on methodology, Jigsaw Academy’s one of its kind edtech-industry partnership fosters a strong student data community and also provides students a chance to experience real world business cases. A big draw for TEG Analytics was IBM and University of Chicago’s participation in the course creation which ensured the quality of students’ work output is the best-in-class and in line with the industry’s requirements.

Here’s how the edtech-industry partnership worked:

Jigsaw Academy identified the right capstone partners to ensure ideal returns for both the organization as well as the students. PGPDM students with similar skill sets were grouped together, and then matched with the appropriate company for which they worked on a Capstone project.

So, each Capstone Partner provides a sanitized dataset to their group  which was as close to the real world data as possible along with a problem statement. The partner also provides a business problem to be solved, however this is optional. Since the data is open-ended, the team can choose to interpret the data on their own and devise pointers and solutions that the company can use in the future.

The projects typically lasts 5-6 months, and a point of contact from the company is assigned to each group as a mentor, to oversee the work and to approve the final output.

TEG Analytics has had a productive experience working with Jigsaw Academy students thus far and this has been the case since the first batch of PGPDM students. One of the projects students undertook was on behalf of a global leader in vehicle manufacturing and the problem statement involved identifying High Value Activities on the company’s website, that led to worldwide vehicle purchase,”

In terms of fulfilling the business requirements, the students ticked all the boxes and delivered high quality output. “We found the hypotheses on the sessional as well as the sales data to be both business driven as well as very well supported by all the relevant code and statistical results,” an official from TEG Analytics shared.

Additionally, the exploratory analysis of the website session data was descriptive, visual and exhaustive. The methodology that was followed to prepare the analytical model data file also contained extremely rational inferences. Another highly positive aspect of the work was the cogent and thoroughly comprehensive approaches used in the multiple modelling.

According to Sheeba Rajam, TEG’s Head-Talent Acquisition & Development, Jigsaw Academy students showed cutting-edge techniques in their execution of projects and addressed the problem statement effectively. “Their responsiveness and ownership for the completion of the deliverables of the project were extremely good,” she said.

She further added that the POCs from the Jigsaw team also kept us regularly updated throughout the entire process and were very communicative. “Perhaps most hearteningly, we found the students to be extremely meticulous and structured in their thought processes, which shone through in the way they relayed information back to us,” she added.

In an endeavour to shore up data literacy in India, professional partnerships like these are effective in bridging the much-talked about skill gap and allows both students and data-intensive organizations to benefit in some way with the exchange of information that takes place. Even in the future, TEG Analytics will take on the mantle of spreading data practices with professional partnerships.