DMU students attended a Business Insights Day at the Chamber’s Friar’s Mill managed workspace in Leicester on 10th June.
The day was offered as part of a prize to students on DMU’s Lead and Inspire – a leadership programme for DMU students that identify as being black or of ethnic minority (BAME).
Students were challenged to progress development of an AI-powered PDF scanner and then present their results, drawing on methodology, presentation to stakeholders, accuracy and quality of analysis, thoughts on scaling the project and programming.
The winning team was revealed at DMU’s Lead and Inspire awards night. In addition to taking part in the Chamber’s Insights Day, they’ll also get a trip to Amsterdam as part of the prize.
De Montfort University Career Development Manager Humera Hodgkinson said: “There’s an employment gap between students from BAME- black or ethnic minority backgrounds – to their white counterparts. We’re trying to close that gap with the leadership programme. Part of that involves external companies setting life projects for the students.”
Chamber Data Analytics Manager Harsh Shah planned and lead the Business Insight Day and set an AI project for the students to work on, as Humera explains: “The students had to be like consultants, having to solve a problem set by Harsh Shah – and they provided that solution. Harsh has done a fantastic job of demonstrating how businesses work and how they deal with clients.”
DMU Computer Science graduate Kishan Mansukhlal took part. He said: “The programme has been so beneficial for me and made me more confident, more able to present ideas. One skill I’ve learnt is how to present technical information to a non-technical audience.”
Chamber Data Analytics Manager Harsh Shah said: “As a DMU graduate myself in Business Intelligence Systems and Data Mining, I know first-hand how the university is really good at equipping students with the knowledge and skills needed by employers. The Chamber’s Business Insight Day was aimed at helping students applying their knowledge and skills into real world business projects. We covered a lot of ground – from getting brilliant ideas to IT architecture, testing and deployment.”
Humera said the Business Insights Day was a big success: “The students said the day gave them a different level of motivation and determination to do something with the skills they have. We had really good engagement for this programme and it was the first time we ran it for students across all the faculties so we’re hoping it grows, giving more students exposure to businesses.”
