The EXPLORE Data Science Academy (EDSA), which started out training young data scientists in South Africa in 2018, has grown to become ExploreAI (EAI), a global solutions company with international reach across Europe, the USA and Africa. The company also has a new UK-based CEO, Has Dosanjh, who is a seasoned executive in digital transformation and data collaboration applications.
Commenting on his appointment, Dosanjh said, “I love taking organisations through complex transformations that involve the use of data, digital assets, and new ways of working. The CEO in me measures success by customer satisfaction and profits.”
ExploreAI founder, Shaun Dippnall, remains as group chairman and head of what is now ExploreAI Academy. “Has’ appointment comes at an appropriate time. He has a proven track record of implementing growth strategies, building strong and diverse teams, and creating value for stakeholders,” he said. “We are immensely proud of our progress as a business. After starting from my home in Cape Town, we are now an international company based in London that employs over 180 highly qualified and talented individuals, and which has doubled revenues annually for the last five years.”
Dippnall believes ExploreAI’s South African legacy lies at the heart of its success. “We have been able to leverage the country’s need to grow its data science skills base through our ExploreAI Academy, while attracting international projects and work back to the country through our own data science competence and competitive pricing,” he added.
ExploreAI Academy
ExploreAI Academy (EA) has grown from training 100 data science learners to training over 1000 annually since its inception. These students study EA’s courses online on either a part-time or full-time basis. ExploreAI Academy has partnered with over 25 companies that sponsor students and later onboard them into their own organisations. Over 40 ExploreAI staff members are graduates of the academy.
EAI's early aspirations to teach 10 000 – or even 50 000 – students a year by 2025 are on track, with a bumper student intake in the pipeline for 2023 already.
International business
The future is packed with opportunities, as Dippnall sees it. “Data science is emerging as a critical success factor in virtually any business or organisation. Companies are investing in cloud tools and skills, and are moving to be AI-enabled and insights-led. There are multiple opportunities for companies to partner with ExploreAI in terms of learnerships, training and development, skills transfer, and consulting. The opportunities exist across many industries including retail, mining, media, banking, financial services, and logistics.”
ExploreAI's corporate clients are utility companies in the UK, financial services and waste management businesses in Europe, and telecommunications clients in the USA. Examples of its international projects include:
• Telecommunications – using data science and AI to optimise the rollout of a fibre-optic network infrastructure to minimise distance travelled, while maximising revenue earned.
• Insurance – pricing, credit underwriting, optimising collection, and recommending retirement investments.
• Water – building a network-wide data model for a water utility, with features including leak detection, predicting supply interruptions, near real-time supply-demand modelling, asset health and predictive alarm notifications, among others.
• Waste – development of digital twins for wastewater treatment plants: software-based replicas of physical systems that enable operators to run forecasts and simulations of their system digitally, and operate their businesses with greater efficiencies.
“ExploreAI has proved that South Africans have the technical skills, entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic to succeed in a highly technical, rapidly changing and competitive marketplace, locally and across the world,” Dippnall concludes.
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