The Eastern Seaboard of India – Bhubaneswar, Odisha - the new Education Hub for Data Science & Analytics

It wasn’t seen as fashionable to study in Odisha not so long ago, however, the Eastern Coastal region has had a long history of intellectual pursuit! The quest for academic excellence has been renewed in this neck of the woods; data science specialization is highlighted herein

Yes, folks, from Kolkata in the north of the Bay of Bengal to Chennai in the south, education and intellectual pursuits have long been intrinsic to the eastern coastal belt of India. When the venerated monk of the Ramakrishna Order, Swamy Vivekananda, returned from the US after his epochal Chicago address in September 1893, he went straight to Madras (now more familiar to us as Chennai). After the stimulating sojourn among the enlightened world spiritual leaders in the US, the monk wanted to revive the philosophical spirit of Hinduism in India and thought that Madras was the best starting point as it was regarded, together with Calcutta in those days, the hub of the intelligentsia of India. These two cities have produced renowned modern intellectual giants of India; to name but just 2: the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan of Chennai (remember the movie, The Man Who Knew Infinity, Pressman Films, 2015?) and Satyendranath Bose, the celebrated Physicist who introduced the concept of quantum mechanics, who worked closely with Albert Einstein in formulating the Bose-Einstein Condensate, and after whom the famous theoretical particulate matter, the Boson Particle, is named, is a native of Kolkata. And nestled between these 2 renowned eastern seaboard cities is the venerated town of Puri, the town that really spread Hinduism all over the world; the Hare Krishna movement has its inspiration at the famous Jagannath Temple of Puri where Bhaktivedanta AC Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), spent most of his early years.

Do you know where the headquarters of the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) is located? Easy one this – yup it’s Kolkata. This institute is well known for its research, teaching, and application of mathematics, statistics, operational research, data science, data analytics, natural sciences, and social sciences. Qualifying as a Mathematician or Statistician from this institute is a highly prized certification with international recognition.

This writer had close interactions with the former Director of the Indian Statistical Institute, the inimitable Prof Dr. Bimal Kumar Roy, an eminent Statistician. Mathematician and Cryptologist of international repute; Prof Roy, a Padma Shri awardee, has had sterling inputs to rejuvenate the study of the sciences and mathematics in the region, including Bhubaneshwar.

AptusLearn (an academic venture of Aptus Data Labs) has collaborated closely with the illustrious professor in putting together its Post Graduate Diploma in Data Science that is offered at IIIT (International Institute of Information Technology), Bhubaneswar. After all, data science cannot exist without advanced number-crunching techniques, can it?

From the turn of the century, the state government of Odisha has done much to transform Bhubaneswar into a world-class academic hub. What Chandrababu Naidoo did for Hyderabad, transforming the city into an important information technology hub, Naveen Patnaik is doing for education in the Bhubaneswar-Cuttack corridor.

Here is a fact that you would know for sure: the Kalinga Hockey Stadium is a world-class facility; nay, It isn’t just a world-class facility as this means that it shares this honor with other such facilities elsewhere, nay, it’s the finest modern hockey stadium in the world –regularly hosting world cups and international leagues to the delight of the international hockey fraternity.

It is the same energy and drives, folks, that has gone into the improvement of education in Odisha, to attract the best of students from India and abroad, besides world-class athletes, to a part of the world that was known mainly for the annual Puri Rath Yatra, the Sun Temple of Konark, and, of course, delectable Rasagollas & Chenna poda!

It’s no surprise that another eastern seaboard locale, from being a rural area, is being transformed into a state capital, albeit with some political shenanigans along the way that is still in play there – yup I’m referring to Amravati located tween Guntur and Vijayawada. The resurgence of the eastern region is something that the wise would sit up and notice! While the north (West Bengal), south (Tamil Nadu) and a part of the mid-region (AP-Telangana) are undergoing the usual political perturbations which may go on for another few years, Odisha has had the best political stability in the region; no wonder we see steady & tangible development there. Five decades of perseverance by the government has seen the opening of an IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) in Bhubaneshwar. While this may seem like the quintessential point of reference that Bhubaneshwar is the new knowledge hub of India, take a look at some of the steps and schemes implemented by the government in this regard:

• Several new ICSE schools in the last 20 years
• IIM Sambalpur in 2015 – spreading education excellence to outlying parts of the State;
• The imminent opening of an AIIMS at Bhubaneshwar;
• Implementation of regional and state-wide awards to winners in maths and science;
• Development of teachers – across the board improvement in primary and secondary education;
• Funding of research in institutions like NISER – infotech has given immense prominence here;
• In the rural areas, the govt has funded indirect educational expenses such as uniforms, internet networks, and the like – a worthy use of the fiscus indeed.

Importantly, the government is robustly encouraging the development of higher education in the fields of engineering, medicine, the sciences, and mass communication; it is no wonder then that one of the leading Data Science & Advanced Analytics companies of India, Aptus Data Labs, although based in Bengaluru, has collaborated with IIIT, Bhubaneswar to start the PG Diploma in Data Science at IIIT Bhubaneswar.

Prof Dr. Gopal Krishna Nayak, the visionary Founder Director of IIIT Bhubaneswar, headed the team on behalf of IIIT - BBSR and made available the best resources of the Institute, and, together with the cutting edge technologies, experienced Analysts, and real-world data samples, Aptus Data Lab’s collaboration with IIIT Bhubaneswar is reaping rich rewards in the field of specialization studies in data science and analytics in Bhubaneswar.

The infrastructure rollout in the city is also enviable as this is necessary to attract bright students from the urban jungles of India; students who prefer a serene atmosphere for study, where life is not dictated by horrendous traffic congestions, nor the life-threatening pollution characteristic of large cities, and where living standards now match that of the big cities but with much more attractive cost-of-living terms. It ain’t no surprise, then, that UK-based market research agency, Juniper Research, has put Bhubaneswar among the top 20 best performing smart cities in the world, the ONLY Indian city to feature in their list.

Data Science & Analytics education has now also ‘made it big’ in Bhubaneswar. Perhaps you may want to check out the PG Diploma offered at IIIT Bhubaneswar in collaboration with AptusLearn to fulltime freshers and to part-time working professionals desirous of improving their qualifications. This includes student accommodation at IIIT-Bhubaneswar for those who need it. It’s not only PG Diplomas guys, certificate courses in the core essentials of Data Science and Analytics are also offered to those unable to attend college. Not just that, if your company wants to upgrade their IT employees, AptusLearn also offer on-site training, workshops and boot camps with accredited certificates to successful participants – master class training in Data Engineering, Advanced Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud Computing, and allied fields, with focus on emerging technologies, key essential in the era of the 4th Industrial Revolution.

You may want to check out https://www.aptuslearn.in/ and also check out https://www.aptusdatalabs.com/

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