Hellenic American University is excited to partner with SAS Institute, a worldwide leader in business intelligence and advanced analytics in an innovative training project that aims to enhance students’ skills in areas such as big data, machine learning and predictive analytics.
Through this joint venture, SAS will share with University faculty and students modern teaching resources and learning materials and will provide them with free access to the SAS Academic Hub web platform and other relevant software.
The instructional content made available through the partnership has been incorporated into three new graduate-level University courses under the guidance of the Directors of the University’s Informatics and Business programs—Drs. Panagiotis Kalozoumis and Stavros Sindakis, respectively. The new courses are Text Analytics and Machine Learning, which has been added to the M.Sc. in Informatics program; Forecasting, a new MBA course; and Visual Analytics, an interdisciplinary course addressed to both MSI and MBA students—all areas of expertise in growing demand. The new courses will be offered starting Spring 2022.
As Kalozoumis points out, the courses offer realistic hands-on experience in business analytics. He says that “incorporating SAS courses in our MSI program will have a very positive effect on the professional development and career choices of our students as well as on the reputation of the program itself.” Part of the added value are the clear pathways that SAS has to certifications and badges, which he calls “important, additional micro-credentials that will enrich the CVs of our students.”
The 2022 Spring launch date gives faculty ample time to become acquainted with the SAS learning platform and instructional materials through the AI Minds Academy, a recent joint initiative between SAS Institute and the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises (SEV), Greece’s largest business network, whose members include 400 of the largest corporations in Greece. The AI Minds Academy seeks to accelerate the digital transformation of the Greek business ecosystem by educating students in the latest AI and data science technologies and by linking them with high-caliber job market networks.
The partnership idea grew out of discussions between Dr. Damian Giannakis, Associate Professor in the HAUNIV Business Programs, and Yiannis Papatsiros an HAUNIV alumnus, PMBA ’13 valedictorian and SAS’s Regional Lead for Greece, Cyprus and Bulgaria. The concept was further developed with input from Elpida Kallia SAS’s Regional Go to Market Head.
