Wikibon projected the Big Data market to top $84 Billion in 2026, attaining a 17 percent compound annual growth rate for the forecast period 2011 to 2026. Upon viewing these numbers, it is not astonishing that experts call the advent of Big Data as an 'extraordinary knowledge revolution.' The Big Data industry – the industry that provides the rest of the market with the ability to access, analyze and use humungous volumes of data - will require a whole new army of data workers. India alone will require a minimum of one lakh data scientists in the next couple of years in addition to scores of data managers and data analysts, to support the fast emerging Big Data space.

To explore this space, many training outfits are currently in the process of understanding the industry to decide on what kind of courses should be designed to churn out an army of specialized skilled talent to feed the Big Data industry. One of the major players in this sector is Edvancer Eduventures, a training institute that started 18 months ago with just 10 enrolments in the first month but has witnessed significant growth since then. Aatash Shah, Founder and CEO, Edvancer Eduventures says, "Today, we have over

125 enrolments every month on average, across our programs and we are looking to scale up to over 300 enrolments every month by the end of the year."

Edvancer was started with the aim of providing short-term career and skill oriented courses to graduates and post-graduates, many of whom pass out of universities with a degree but no real skills. They also provide these courses to those who want to re-skill or up-skill themselves and change their career paths. "We are the ones who bridge the gap between the outdated theoretical curricula taught by the universities and the cutting-edge, practical skills which employers need," claims Shah, whose institute offers short-term courses in Business Analytics, Hadoop, R and SAS programming to equip the graduates and working professionals for the demands of the Big Data industry.

Students who join these courses gain the skills necessary to work as a Business Analytics Professional or a Hadoop & Big Data Expert, learn the skills of analysing data in SAS or R or become an all-in-one data scientist. The institute certifies the students after rigorous evaluation processes. These skills and certificates are extremely valuable to analytics employers when they recruit candidates. "Our courses are extremely practical and hands-on in nature. We cover each and every concept using real-world case studies so as to give the students a practical perspective," says Shah. The institute also provides students opportunities to work on real-world projects within the course so that they get ample hands-on experience. These hands-on skills are extremely essential for both fresh graduates and working professionals looking to penetrate the Big Data industry.

Shah confidently claims that students do not require any further training in their area of study as anyone who is trained at Edvancer is ready to contribute from day one of the job. A crucial attribute of Edvancer that enables them to be confident of their students' abilities is their faculty expertise, who are said to be the best in the industry. "They are all professionals working in the analytics & big data industry and have anywhere between 5-10 years of experience. This gives them a lot of practical understanding of the industry which they share with our students," explains Shah. On the corporate training side, Edvancer counts some of the biggest MNCs across India as their clients for analytics training. "We customize our courses and trainings as per their need and deliver them at their premises or online. We also do pre and post assessments to gauge training needs and training effectiveness,' adds Shah.

Though, the institute has gained its share of reputation in the market within a short span of time, they are not ready to rest on their laurels. They are constantly working on newer courses to expand their range within the area of analytics and big data. According to Shah, the institute would be coming up with courses on text analytics, financial services analytics, marketing analytics and Python for analytics along with courses on other verticals such as digital marketing, cyber security, web development and many more. “Corporate companies who are looking to hire Edvancer’s students can be rest assured that they are hiring those who have already been rigorously trained and evaluated,” guarantees Shah, who has immense confidence on his faculties and students.