The data scientist - an attractive investment? (page 2 of 2)

EMC, owner of Pivotal, are currently running their own Academic Alliance program in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, training graduates within big data analytics virtualisation, cloud computing and other IT trends.

Sio says Pivotal want to help customers to do become data driven on their own; thus maintaining their IPs and staying in control of their innovations.

"There are a few ways an organisation can make use of a data scientist. They can try to go out and hire one, which is very hard to do because they're in such high demand. They can hire one straight from school and train them up and you can find people in your organisation with the right skillsets and retrain them."

Sio's own route to becoming a senior data scientist came via a passion for applied mathematics and an internship with Fox, owner of the formerly de rigueur Myspace, though she admits the emerging role already requires greater numbers of recruits with dedicated training.

Whether or not the data scientist is the CIO of tomorrow is really based upon whether or not we see ROI success stories emerge in the coming years. Any paradigm shift towards data science becoming integral to business transformation will take time and investment, but a greater measure of perceived revenue generation from the guys at the top.

Previously: Steven Bond spoke to Josh Klahr, Vice President of Product Management at Greenplum, about big data and the consumer experience.