E is for Eskwelabs Issue 041 - On Climate Change and Online Classes 🌏📚

In our forty-first issue, we will tackle the recent United Nations Climate Summit and everything related to Internet-based education.

Nov 20, 2021

We created this newsletter to keep our alums, partners, and anyone interested in learning skills for the future of work updated and connected to our ever-growing family. If you want to read our previous issues, you can check them out here.

Happy Sunday Eskweloves! Two headlines are filling our news feeds and airwaves recently: face-to-face classes and the UN Climate Summit. Though live classes in actual classroom settings are now being tried, the norm as of now is still online education. Therefore, we have the following news-timely topics we’d like to share with you today:

What you can learn in this newsletter:

👨‍🏫👩‍🏫 Learn how to reduce your workload and enhance your online teaching skills through data
🖥️ Sample (in spirit) our online data science class through updates on our latest cohort of Data Science Fellows
💻📖 Examine the pros and cons of online bootcamps as alternative means of education
🌏 See our data analytics learners attend the United Nations COP26 Climate Summit “in spirit”
📣 Glean valuable insights from our speakers and partners at the Philippine Startup Week

⚡ Improving online teaching strategies through the power of data

With an increasing number of Filipinos getting vaccinated these days, the Philippine government has started permitting some schools to conduct face-to-face classes. However, for most learning institutions, online classes are still the norm.

We understand how challenging teaching through the Internet can be. That is why we did some research and came up with an article that can help struggling educators in the new normal.

If you are a teacher or know someone who is, our latest blog post can help you or that person out. In our curated article, we show how knowing something about data can help you automate routine tasks and focus on creating inspiring and informative content for your students.

Click here to learn more.

⚡ Sneak peek into what Cohort 8 of our Data Science Fellowship is up to

Have you ever wondered what it is like to attend our 12-week Data Science Fellowship?

For this newsletter issue, we are giving you a sort of backstage pass so you can get a glimpse of how our Fellowship puts learners at the center, without sacrificing quality education.

Cohort 8, our current batch of Data Science Fellows, just started their classes last Monday, November 15. That is why they started with basic statistical measurements like mean, median, and mode. The explanation of concepts was then followed with a live demonstration of how these statistical measurements are encoded as programming code on Python.

From the basics, our instructor proceeded with slightly more complex topics. She discussed how to process election-related data from the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). Information such as campaign expenses, political party affiliation and social media presence were in the COMELEC dataset. This issue is quite timely, given that the Philippine national election is fast approaching.

The Data Science Fellowship lecture last Monday also featured dedicated Q and A sessions, where students had the opportunity to freely ask our instructors questions about the topics discussed. They could ask either by unmuting their microphone on Zoom or typing their questions in the chat box.

Aside from all these, the whole session last November 15 featured two 15-minute breaks to allow students to catch their breath or grab something to eat. You don’t have to worry about getting left behind or going thirsty or hungry while attending our online lectures.

If after reading all this, you think our Data Science Fellowship suits your taste, click here to learn more or sign up for the program so you can get the chance to be part of Cohort 9 next year.

⚡ Examining the good and bad side of bootcamps

What comes to your mind when you hear the word “bootcamp”? If you’re thinking of soldier training, then you’re partly right.

Bootcamps, especially in the world of tech these days, are in many ways as short and intense as basic training in the army. The big difference here is, instead of learning how to shoot or find cover from enemy fire, bootcamps offer skills that can help you avoid getting fired. These unique learning programs offer courses in high-tech and in-demand fields like software development and data science.

If you need help determining if bootcamps are the right way for you to enhance your career or improve your mind, clicking this link may help you make the best decision.

⚡ Our data analytics learners’ “virtual” contribution to the UN Climate Summit

Photo source: https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/cop26

One of the biggest developments that hit our airwaves and Internet news feeds recently is the COP26 (Conference of Parties) Summit organized by the United Nations. Here, politicians, scientists, businesspeople, and activists from all over the world agreed upon measures to help reduce carbon emissions.

Carbon emissions from fossil-fueled machines like cars and factory furnaces are heating up the earth. This phenomenon of “global warming” is linked to the many natural disasters that have killed many people worldwide and destroyed billions of dollars worth of property.

This is why the United Nations climate summit (which concluded last November 12) is such a great milestone.

Our learners in our Data Analytics Bootcamp (DAB) have, in spirit, also attended the latest climate-oriented summit. By “in spirit,” we mean they pretended to be representatives of Southeast Asian countries at the summit.

How is this possible, you might ask?

One of our many sprints (we call our data projects “sprints”) involve our learners gathering carbon emissions data of different ASEAN countries. Our students are divided into groups, with each group representing one Southeast Asian country. From the data they gather, our DAB learners create visualizations (i.e. bar graphs and pie charts) and determine how big the carbon emissions problem is in their designated country.

If you are a person who is passionate about hot social issues like climate change, you may enjoyreading this blog post about our learners’ data sprint.

⚡ Enlightening ideas shine forth from our Philippine Startup Week speakers

We at Eskwelabs and our partners do not like keeping good ideas to ourselves. Like seeds cast on fertile ground, we want our insights to also bear fruit in the minds of others and spur both individual and business or societal growth.

That is why when we were invited to share our ideas at the recently concluded Philippine Startup Week (PHSW), we made sure that our presentations were as interesting as they were inspiring and informative.

For instance, our presentation on our Innovate with Data (IWD) was not just the mere promotion of our entrepreneur- and startup-centered data education track. We did highlight the fact that our IWD program was funded by Accenture and done in partnership with the AIM-DBI incubator. However, we added something extra for our audience.

In our talk at PHSW, our Partnerships Team discussed the difference between data science and data analytics. The difference between the two mainly involves the types of business needs that each field fulfills. For instance, data analytics is good for determining what is currently happening in a business (in terms of current earnings or customer satisfaction levels) while data science can actually make predictions about the future of the enterprise (projected sales based on different factors, etc.).

From this introduction, our COO Aurelien Chu then proceeded to discuss the benefits that startups and entrepreneurs can enjoy from enrolling in our Innovate with Data program. For instance, he mentioned that leveraging data for starting up a business can help a founder or entrepreneur minimize costs that come from designing products based on opinions instead of market data.

After Aurelien shared the advantages of the IWD program, our partners at Accenture took the online stage. Accenture’s Ventures Manila Lead Angelo Lantin, for instance, talked about how companies can rapidly increase their return on investment through artificial intelligence (which is part of our Data Science Fellowship curriculum) and analytics.

Lai-Man Sung (Accenture’s Manila Innovation Hub Lead), on the other hand, shared some encouraging insights that have an effect on career prospects for data scientists and analysts in the Philippines. For example, he mentioned that he is optimistic that the Department of Agriculture’s use of data to help improve farmers’ productivity is a good start for the widespread use and standardization of data in the country.

If you’re interested in taking advantage of the “sunrise” industry of data science and data analytics, click the links below to see how our alumni have already contributed to some of the country’s most innovative businesses.

That’s it for our forty-first issue of the newsletter! Thanks so much for reading! ❤️

Have something to share? We encourage you to give us feedback and ideas (you may do so here) and if you like it, please share it with a friend! 💬

Have a good Sunday! See you again in your inbox next, next week! 😎

💌 Your friend in the world of data,

Mel

Content Associate at Eskwelabs

E is for Eskwelabs