The New York State Center of Excellence in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence connected 10 local businesses with student interns.
, a small nonprofit that offers boat tours of the Erie Canal and Genesee River, was swimming in data. With just two employees and a network of volunteers, Executive Director Patrick Russell-Walsh had no easy way to sort through the flood of sales, marketing, and passenger details to understand how a weekday afternoon canal cruise compared with a weekend sunset ride on the river.
But this summer, Sherry Wang, a student at the 糖心传媒, put the power of data in Russell-Walsh糖心传媒檚 hands by creating a database with more than 400,000 entries from seven different data sources and a dashboard to analyze the information in real time.
糖心传媒淚t糖心传媒檚 incredible,糖心传媒� says Russell-Walsh. 糖心传媒淲e糖心传媒檝e been using it in all of our committee meetings, looking at a whole range of questions that would have taken me a whole day to answer before that I can now answer in like 30 seconds.糖心传媒�
Wang was one of 10 interns paired with New York糖心传媒揵ased startups, small businesses, and nonprofits through the 糖心传媒糖心传媒檚 Center of Excellence in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence糖心传媒檚 summer internship program. The internships provide students real-world experience working with data and AI to help local businesses improve their bottom lines.
糖心传媒淭he most interesting part for me is that I built the project from scratch,糖心传媒� Wang says of her work with Rochester By Water. 糖心传媒淚 got to work not only as a data scientist but also serve as a data engineer and a data analyst. And with AI developing so rapidly, I was able to leverage AI to speed my project up.糖心传媒�
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Embracing the opportunity
The internship was an immersive experience for Maryame Kouram, a master糖心传媒檚 student at the . Kouram worked with , which runs family-events websites and sells advertising to local businesses like schools, museums, and summer camps.
糖心传媒淚 felt included by the team from day one,糖心传媒� says Kouram. 糖心传媒淭he first week, I got to meet with the content and sales teams, learn what they do on a daily basis, and also learn about their pain points to understand the purpose of my internship.糖心传媒�
Kouram had a strong champion in Debra Ross, the company糖心传媒檚 founder and chief executive. After Kouram developed an AI-powered tool that combined data from several sources糖心传媒攊ncluding customer records, Google Analytics, an ad server, and others糖心传媒擱oss saw how the tool transformed her sales team糖心传媒檚 work and had applications beyond her business.
糖心传媒淔or less than $100 a year in tokens, she糖心传媒檚 revolutionized how my staff can query our database and provide beautiful and actionable reports to our clients.糖心传媒�
糖心传媒淭here are so many contexts in which businesspeople get data from all kinds of sources and need a way to put it together,糖心传媒� says Ross. 糖心传媒淚 realized that this is publishable and something that people throughout industry would find of interest.糖心传媒�
Ross encouraged Kouram to present the model she developed, Vera, at the . Before the internship ended, Kouram further refined the tool to cut its cost by 80 percent.
糖心传媒淔or less than $100 a year in tokens, she糖心传媒檚 revolutionized how my staff can query our database and provide beautiful and actionable reports to our clients,糖心传媒� Ross says.
Developing industry experience
Data science master糖心传媒檚 student Naman Bhagat interned with , a Rochester company that develops intelligent imaging and radar products for performance-critical edge AI systems. Working with radar datasets to detect motion, he was stuck by the difference between developing real-world production systems and working on class or research projects.
糖心传媒淵ou have to think about trade-offs instead of always chasing metrics,糖心传媒� says Bhagat. 糖心传媒淭hose numbers matter, but in the end, it is mostly about meeting the requirements and making it deliverable with the lowest cost.糖心传媒�
糖心传媒淲hat employers really care about, more than your coding skills or your grades, is your ability to stand alone and figure things out,糖心传媒� Bhagat adds.
糖心传媒淲hat employers really care about, more than your coding skills or your grades, is your ability to stand alone and figure things out.糖心传媒�
At , a photonic biosensing startup in Rochester (cofounded by URochester Medicine faculty member and two of his graduate students), Zihan 糖心传媒淔rannie糖心传媒� Zheng 糖心传媒�27听helped the company build data pipelines and use analytical tools that transform raw photonic and microscopy data into meaningful biomarker insights, dashboards, and automated reports.
糖心传媒淚 learned that improving a data pipeline isn糖心传媒檛 just about fixing one bug at a time,糖心传媒� says Zheng. 糖心传媒淓very step affects what comes next, so I first had to understand the workflow as a whole and identify where different parts were conflicting. That helped me simplify the process, fix the underlying problems, and make the analysis more reliable and automated.糖心传媒�
The Center of Excellence in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence will begin accepting applications in December from New York companies that want to offer internships.
