Industry analysts have identified analytics as the fastest growing software category for company spending.  They also expect that the need for staff with these capabilities will outpace available skill sets in many organizations. This will mean that expertise in data mining and predictive analytics will be highly sought after for years to come.  Specifically, there is a strong demand for employees to not only be able to report their results but also give a compelling story as to why these things are happening.

The employees of the future need leading-edge technology

To ensure that educational institutions like yours have access to leading-edge predictive analytics to help students prepare for these opportunities, we now offer the Watson Analytics Academic Program (WAP).  This program provides no-cost use of IBM Watson Analytics software for classroom teaching and research.  Students can explore data sets, get automated predictive insights, and create dashboards. They can also analyze social data from Twitter to achieve a more complete view of their data.

But this is not just for students

The Watson Analytics Academic Program offers a Faculty edition for those educators who want to have the same capabilities offered in the Student edition but with the ability to add students to form a workgroup for collaboration and sharing. We also offer Campus Access, which can help your school provide a valuable tool to all of your students for no cost regardless of their class selection.  By partnering with IBM, you will be able to add Watson Analytics to your students’ available resources to save time and energy for those students not necessarily interested in data analysis but would find it helpful in classes of all disciplines.

Joining WAP is a no-brainer (save your brain for high achievement)

There are a lot of good reasons to join WAP. Here are three excellent ones:

• If you’re a student, you’ll have a competitive advantage after you graduate. You can register with your educational email address here.
• If you’re an educator, you’ll be equipped with the most powerful analytical tools for data exploration, analysis, and visualizations. All you have to do is download the application, complete it and return it to us by email. After the application is approved, you will receive an email with your registration link.
• If you’re an administrator, Dean, or president, Campus Access can foster links between your institution and corporations to ensure that students will be sought by employers. To request Campus Access, contact wap@us.ibm.com

For more information about Watson Analytics in general, visit www.watsonanalytics.com