Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, blockchain – all terms belonging to the ‘fourth industrial revolution’, in which data are the holy grail. Data are playing an increasingly important role in the manufacturing industry, food production, healthcare, logistics, the transition to sustainably energy – in just about everything.

Vacancies

“But how do you create order out of data?” asks Rudolf Müller, professor at SBE and researcher at BISS, established in 2015. He spearheaded the inception of the master’s programme in Business Intelligence and Smart Services. “How do you extract the relevant information from a great mass of data? This is a task for data specialists, but there aren’t enough of them. There are thousands of vacancies in companies and governments, not just for IT types who can read data and make them accessible, but also for people who actually understand what organisations need. Specialists who grasp concrete data issues and frame them within the larger context of society. I like to compare them with architects. An architect translates the client’s wishes into a practical and pleasant home, taking into account the budget and technical feasibility. That’s why I prefer the term ‘data architects’ to ‘data specialists’.”       

Social skills

Bram Foubert, the master’s programme manager, nods. “There’s a huge demand for people who know their way around data science. Every company, every organisation knows it has to do something with data. But the idea that this ‘something’ is a form of IT is a misconception. It’s about much more than that. In 2015 we took the first steps towards setting up this master’s programme connecting technology with social aspects and entrepreneurship. The idea is that our students translate the technology into concrete applications and really listen to the needs of organisations. They have to bridge the gap between data suppliers and users, which requires technical but also social skills. That’s why we have three main subjects: business intelligence, business analytics and service design.”

Odd one out

The programme is the odd one out at the SBE, which is otherwise purely focused on economics and business. “Academically speaking, this is an unusual programme”, Foubert says. “We devote a lot of time to project work and multidisciplinarity, which means many different departments are involved. A quarter of the curriculum consists of concrete projects, provided by our partners on the Smart Services Campus in Heerlen. Technology and practice come together here. These days more and more workers are expected to derive insights from data. These people are rarely business intelligence experts or data scientists, and so what they need is automated, user-friendly smart services. Data architects design such smart services and translate the users’ needs into technical specifications.”

Leader

In 2015 Maastricht University, the Open University and Zuyd University of Applied Sciences founded the BISS Institute to support the digitisation of businesses and governments. “BISS is like a living lab, a place where we do pioneering work and constantly adapt to the latest insights and developments”, explains Müller, who studied mathematics at the University of Bonn. “Becoming a leader in the field of data science has been our ambition from the start. Entrepreneurs from all over the world are working with data here, from both a technical and a social angle. We’re working on smart solutions in logistics, sustainability, healthcare and the circular economy. Education is very important to us too, of course, so we’re very happy with this Master in Business Intelligence and Smart Services.”

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