Making educational opportunity global is at the heart of the mission of nonprofit WorldQuant University. “Our goal is to leverage technology to bring access to talent,” explains CEO Daphne Kis, through free and online courses in data sciences.
WorkingNation sat down with Kis at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2021 in Beverly Hills as part of our #WorkingNationOverheard interview series. With Charting a New Course as the guiding theme, thought leaders and innovators shared ideas about the changing economy, worker development, education, tech, philanthropy, and more.
WorldQuant University offers a two-year program that leads to a Master of Science degree in financial engineering, and a shorter-term applied data science module that’s offered over 16 weeks.
Kis explains the significance of these pathways. “The first is a fully-accredited Master’s program in financial engineering, which is basically the intersection of financial management, data science, and computer science.”
“Our program is a two-year sequentially taught program, covering everything from computational finance to machine learning to data science, Python, visualization, et cetera. We are accredited since January of this year and we serve about 1,500 students around the world with 25% of our students in Sub-Saharan Africa, about 12% of them in the U.S., and then the rest distributed around the world.”
Regarding the Master’s program, Kis adds, “I’m a huge believer in the value of this degree, because the traditional MBA doesn’t focus on data science. The assumption is somebody else is going to do it. Our belief is that even if you’re not the person to do it, you need to understand that data, how it works, and what the engine is behind that.”
“Our second program is a data science course, an intensive 16-week course in applied data science, giving students the opportunity to each use the Jupyter Notebook, learn and iterate on Python, data visualization, and all the tools used in the data sciences these days.”
Kis says there are about 4,000 students on the platform studying the shorter-term program, with about 30% in Sub-Saharan Africa and 19% in the U.S. Students receive badges and credentials as part of their participation.
Kis also notes that employer partnerships are an important part of the school’s focus. She says companies should consider talent who might not have traditional degrees, but managed to complete the institution’s rigorous programming.
With particular attention being paid to how organizations are driving their initiatives on diversity, equity, and inclusion, Kis says WorldQuant’s model of free and online education is pushing those efforts forward with a global student population.
She does say that progress needs to be made in terms of a particular population. “Gender diversity is an issue. And these are industries in which we are working on strategies. Campaigns to help women who have backgrounds in computer science, in sociology, right? In other disciplines, social science disciplines, where basically they just need 21st century tools to continue to pursue the work that they have been doing.”
Click here to learn more about WorldQuant University.
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Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
