DURHAM, N.H. – In a continuing effort to give students a competitive edge in the workforce, the University of New Hampshire has partnered with IBM Watson Analytics to give every student a subscription to Watson™ Analytics Student Edition at no cost.

“UNH is proud to partner with IBM Watson Analytics as we continue to embrace data-driven discovery across all of our academic programs and campuses,” said Nancy Targett, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “UNH is a leader in data-driven science and analytics at all levels and promotes applied interdisciplinary learning by putting students in partnership with faculty and real-world data from industry and the public sector. Partnering with IBM Watson will considerably enhance the analytic options students now have to explore our data rich world and promote new insights.”

In addition to providing free access to the tool for 16,000 students, training will be provided for faculty on how to use it in their classes.

“The end goal is to prepare our students for the new demands of the workforce,” said Robert McGrath, director of graduate analytics and data science at UNH. “We believe Watson Analytics will help prepare the next generation of ‘citizen’ data scientists and be instrumental in helping close a critical skills gap identified in the workforce. Organizations no longer rely on just data scientists or IT to prepare and interpret data. Now marketing, sales, operations, finance and HR professionals are being asked to get answers from all types of data on their own.”

IBM Watson Analytics and UNH first connected for the Peter T. Paul Entrepreneurship Center’s (ECenter) hackathon on data analytics last fall. A sponsor of the hackathon, they were so impressed with the caliber of students that they offered to make Watson Analytics accessible to every student on the Durham, Manchester and Concord campuses.

Watson Analytics is a cloud-based analytics service that enables a business user to be a “citizen data scientist” and easily find answers within their own data. It automates the process of going from business question to actionable insights and reduces dependence on scarce analytics expertise.

Learn more about the partnership at www.unh.edu/analytics/ibm-watson-partnership.

The Graduate Programs in Analytics and Data Science at UNH provide a wide range of training programs and industry partnership opportunities. We are an interdisciplinary set of programs, bringing together expert faculty from across campus to explore the rapidly evolving field of analytics and data science through education, research, and exploration.