Industry Partners
MSc CDA - Your Connection to Industry
To ensure students are exposed to in-demand computing and data analytics technologies and help them expand their professional networks, MSc CDA features paid internships, industry funded projects, and industry-based instructors and mentors.
Videos
Internships
Students from our recent MSc CDA cohorts secured a variety of exciting internships working with Fortune 500s, SMEs, governments, and not-for-profits.
| Software Developer Intern | Province of Nova Scotia |
| Consultant - Python ETL QE; | CGI |
| Consultant -BIA | Nova Scotia Power |
| Data Analyst Intern / Business Analyst | Citco |
| Software Engineer | Xelerate |
| Full Stack Developer | Truverus |
| Developer | KardioDiagnostix |
| Business Analyst | Citco |
| Data Scientist | RBC Financial Group |
Past cohorts completed internships at organizations such as Statistics Canada, IBM Canada, Deloitte Canada, Canada Revenue Agency, Emera, Equitable Life of Canada, RBC Capital Markets, and Equisoft.
Industry Projects
Industry funded applied projects provide an excellent opportunity for students to hone their skills as both full stack developers and data analysts. Projects address a major data analytics problem identified by industry partners, emphasizing project management, and applying the skills and knowledge gained through MSc CDA coursework.
Read about the Saint Mary’s Retail Robot project – featuring MSc CDA students Abhishek Vijayakumar Latha and Francis Kuzhippallil
This year, our students are working with start-ups, research organizations, and not-for-profits such as Wellnify.ai, Artinus, InsightWell, the Sobey School of Business, and Women’s Centres Connect.
These paid technical projects include industry funding and support from Mitacs, Canada’s innovation connector that helps match organizations with top-tier researchers and talent to successfully deliver innovation projects.
Industry Instructors
Key industry partners and many of our highly successful alumni remain closely connected to the program and help give back, sharing their experience and expertise through workshops, group / one-one tutorials, and professional mentorship.
- Emmanuel Etti: Lead Software Engineer at IBM (topics: Data Bases, Introduction to Blockchain)
- Timur Kudaibergenov: Scrum Master at AXIS Capital (topics: Agile mindset, Azure DevOps, Analytic Hierarchy Process)
- Olugbenro Selere: Senior Software Development Engineer at ESO (topics: Azure DevOps for building and deploying applications)
- Jatin Kumaar Mahajan: Senior Software Developer – Data at Exiger
- Simon Achkar: Senior Software Developer at REDspace Inc.
Funding for various industry projects emanates from a variety of national and regional agencies:
|
Funding Source |
Sample Projects |
| Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) | Generalized sequential data mining using enhanced object representations based on preliminary clustering profiles. |
| Mitacs National Research Council
Mitacs is a national, not-for-profit organization that builds partnerships to support industrial research. All funding includes generous industry contributions. |
Integration of Machine Learning and AI Based Optimization from IoT Data streams and Business Information Systems.
Generalized framework for Prescriptive Machine Learning using IoT data streams. Development of machine learning and artificial intelligence toolbox to monitor data center risks and performance. |
Industry Challenges
Students build their professional networks and gain invaluable experience working on real industry challenges through hackathons and design competitions. MSc CDA regularly sends teams to local and national competitions – with outstanding results.
Teams from MSc CDA finished first in multiple Nova Scotia Open Data Hackathons, sponsored by Microsoft, IBM, Socrata, and the Province of Nova Scotia.
MSc CDA finished as the top Canadian team and third overall in the prestigious International Business Analytics (IBA) Challenge. MSc CDA has sponsored teams in industry and government events alike:
- RBC Next Great Innovator Hackathon, Toronto
- Data for Good - Poverty Hackathon, Chief Data Office, Government of Canada
- Data Visualization Competition, University of New Brunswick
- Innovative Design for Accessibility (IDeA) student competition
- IBM Bluemix Hackathon
- Atlantic Lottery Hackathon, Payzant Home Hardware Hackathon: David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retailing & Services