The Institute’s director, Dr. Michael Rappa, delivered a keynote address today at the Analytics 2014 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Dr. Rappa discussed how universities are solving the talent shortage in analytics and illustrated his talk with the Institute’s successful seven-year track record with the Master of Science in Analytics (MSA) degree program. Dr. Rappa called on universities to breakdown barriers to interdisciplinary education and explore creative solutions to organize the learning experience in ways that better prepare graduates for working with big data. He also called on the private sector to partner closely with universities, and to seek out and support educational innovators within the academic community. The Institute’s longstanding partnership with SAS serves as a model of what can be accomplished.