NCI joins ENFUSE as Data-driven decision-making is on the menu

NCI’s MSc in Data Science students is bringing their skills in data analysis and machine learning to a Dublin City Council and Local Enterprise Office initiative called ENFUSE.

ENFUSE allows micro and small enterprises and social enterprises in the Dublin CIty area to gain access to the specialist knowledge of postgraduate students at DCU, TUD, and, now, NCI.

“This is the third year we’ve run the competition,” says Norman Thompson, part of the Economic Development Team at Local Enterprise Office Dublin City, “and we’re delighted to welcome National College of Ireland into the fold. The enterprises that participate in ENFUSE know they can grow but don’t always have the resources to refine their strategies. Masters’ level students are on top of all the latest thinking, with access to cutting-edge technology, but rarely have the chance to grapple with a real business case. ENFUSE fuses enterprise with masters students.”

For smaller businesses, this is like suddenly having access to a focused R&D department; and for students, it is an opportunity for real-world consultation experience.

“Any enterprise with a clear mission will benefit from working with our masters’ students,” says Dr Anu Sahni, Programme Director of the MSc in Data Analytics at NCI. “Our students can take on huge amounts of data and analyse it for patterns or outliers, allowing you to better understand current operations and, so, how you can best progress, or providing you with a true picture of where you sit in a landscape that includes your competitors. For smaller enterprises that might not know where to start, we can also help find sectorally relevant data for analysis and identify insightful questions.”

Bespoke plans for participant enterprises are formed through regular meetings between students and clients, and also receive academic input from the lecturers supervising the postgraduate programmes taking part. 86% of business participants last year applied some or all of the business plans provided to them by the students – 100% of businesses would recommend participating!

Feedback from students is equally positive, citing not just the satisfaction of working on something non-theoretical, but of learning how to be professional about their work, and of networking within the area where they want to work.

“Following on from the presentation of business plans to each client, the top student teams from each MSc class will move forward to a competition where they pitch to a panel of expert, industry judges.” Thompson goes on to explain. “Students have the opportunity to win team prizes for themselves and for the enterprise they represent.”

ENFUSE Pitch Competition will take place in May, and applications for enterprises to take part in next year’s scheme will open in the fourth quarter of 2021, with details available through Dublin City LEO. 

“ENFUSE aligns perfectly with work already being undertaken by MSc students,” says Dr Sahni, “but is an enhanced experience, offering them the chance to make a measurable difference to a real business and to network with potential employers.”

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