Dmitry Rusanov: «The demand for Data Science will grow»

June 11, at Almaty Management University there started a free school for data analysts Yessenov Data Lab. Its first students were 21 listeners who passed the competition this spring.

The project is a joint one - it has been organized by the academician Sh.Yessenov Foundation together with AlmaU.

The goal of the project is to train analysts, promote the use of data analysis in science and stimulate research activities in this field, use data analysis skills in Kazakhstan organizations and companies. The lecturers of the school were leading specialists in this field. Among them, Dmitry Kotovenko (AGT International, Frankfurt) and Marina Gorlova (Yandex.Money, St. Petersburg), AlmaU professors Kuanysh Abeshev and Timur Bakibayev, who received doctoral degrees in the USA and Germany, as well as Mikhail Lipkovich and Dmitry Rusanov (EPAM Systems, St. Petersburg).

Data Science (data analytics) is a discipline taught in AlmaU since 2017. Big Data is the work with unstructured large data, for example, when from the information on millions of users you need to draw certain conclusions that will help the company to better meet customer needs.

The assessment of the Kazakhstan market shows that Big Data specialists earn about 350 thousand tenge on average. This profession is considered one of the 10 most sought-after specialties on job search sites.

At the Yessenov Data Lab, students study the introduction to the Data Science course and the simplest algorithms, linear regression and classification, logistic regression.

One of the lecturers of the school, Dmitry Rusanov, tells how the training takes place.

- How would you assess the project?

- It’s a very good project, although the program is a bit compressed. Especially I liked the fact that there is an active communication between teachers and students. And it's very good that we managed to attract representatives of different companies who set their own tasks, relate what similar cases they are engaged in, and offer students something to solve. And students immediately have the opportunity to see the industry's perspective. As for me, I give them some suggestions that one could try to apply to solve problems from these companies. That is, they right away have the opportunity to use fresh, just received knowledge to apply to some more or less real cases, as well as the possibility of employment. This should motivate them very well.

- What do you think of Kazakhstan students?

"The sample, of course, is small. But, in my opinion, there are several features: for example, mentally it is hard for people to work independently. They want to be shown to everything, and then to repeat. We had some disagreements on this topic with the students, because I told them to try to do something themselves, and they always thought it would be better for them to be told and given a ready-made recipe. I explained them: instead of fish, I'll give you a fishing rod.

How would you rate their preparation?

- As far as I know, the goal of the selection was not to find strong mathematicians among students, but to find motivated people, aimed at working in specific projects. To let students from other specialties try themselves in this area. It should not be limited only to students of mathematical departments.

- Is the market demand for such specialists high now?

- Well, if representatives of companies come.... I can see that in Kazakhstan Data Science is in its infancy. In Russia, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and some other cities, this trend is now developing in full swing. In Kazakhstan there is more interest rather than real projects. In the near future, and it is obvious, there will be an increase in demand for such specialists. And I believe the students knowingly came here to spend their time in the summer instead of going somewhere to swim.

- How do you like the school program?

- Pretty advanced. Of course, in 6 weeks it is impossible to become a good specialist. This is a basic course, quite interesting; it contains the application of the latest algorithms, neural networks, currently spoken about with aspiration. And the project is organized, I think, very well.

 - When did neural networks appear in Russia?

- The neural networks themselves are an algorithm that appeared in the 1940s, from 2000-2010, working with big data started to develop, that is, in the economy there have emerged enterprises that create and use a very large amount of data. In addition, the growth of computer performance brought these algorithms to a new level, and they began to give a very good result. You know that the Yandex translation quality has recently improved significantly - this is precisely due to the fact that they use the architecture of neural networks, the recognition of images (there are different applications). Even such commonplace applications that girls use to embellish themselves are also done with the help of neural networks. There are a lot of areas of their application, many are just for fun, but sooner or later new businesses will appear on this foundation. By themselves, neural networks are one of many algorithms, they simply have their own characteristics, which give very good results on certain data and tasks.

- What should Data Scientist (data analysis specialist) know and be able to do?

- Data Scientist must know the math, be able to program a little, and know well some area of ​​application. For example, if he works in finance, he must have some sort of understanding of what this data are, so that if the algorithm produces an error, he understands what it depends on: the algorithm itself, or if incorrect data were entered.

 - What will a graduate of Yessenov Data Lab be able to do after leaving?

- They will be able to solve simple problems, be aware of the basic algorithms of Data Science, know how to work with them, and where to find additional information to specialize. And this is already a lot.

At present, education has no boundaries, people should learn on their own. There is a lot of ‘community’ on the Internet, there are books and authors who popularize this direction. Many do not even require copyright protection. Books are laid out - you can read.

- What is the advantage of this course?

"The advantage is not that it gives you a deeper understanding of data analysis. The strength of the course is that you can ask experts about ways of solving some real problems, go deep into the small subtleties of algorithms, sometimes it takes a long time to reach them, because they do not lie on the surface. They themselves can be very trivial, but you need to know how to apply them in practice. And to get acquainted with local firms, to understand what solutions for real tasks business needs – it is worth a lot. This is the strength of the course.