Google Developer Student Club IBA Empowers Students to Reach Pakistani Tech Giants With Help From DataCamp Donates

The GDSC IBA core team

What is GDSC IBA?

GDSC IBA is a Google Developer Student Club at the Institute of Business Administration, a public university in Karachi, Pakistan.

Our mission is to equip learners with state-of-the-art technologies while collaborating with peers at IBA and collectively solving problems the local community faces using tech. In doing so, they connect talented students with resources to develop and unlock professional opportunities.

The GDSC IBA x DataCamp Donates Partnership

When it comes to inspiring education, GDSC IBA is a forerunner for its community of passionate tech learners. In 2023, with the need for data literacy rising, it is crucial to ensure that equal opportunities are provided to all those with a passion for computer science—regardless of socioeconomic circumstances. 

For context, at the time of writing this piece, a DataCamp Premium yearly subscription costs roughly Rs. 40,000 per month (not including access to Workspace, which comes bundled with DataCamp Donates for free). Anecdotally speaking, that same amount of money would pay one month’s rent on a middle-class apartment for a four-person family in Karachi, Pakistan. Even with DataCamp’s discounted regional pricing in place, there are many young aspiring data scientists in our country that need to get entry-level jobs first before they can start to afford a paid subscription.

With that in mind, last year GDSC IBA proudly began its collaboration with DataCamp Donates, the best program for nonprofits and student clubs to improve their community’s data literacy. The mission behind the GDSC IBA x DataCamp Donates partnership is to provide motivated, promising learners in the Institute of Business Administration community with an opportunity to kickstart their learning ambitions through hundreds of free DataCamp licenses.

The mission behind the GDSC IBA x DataCamp Donates partnership is to provide motivated, promising learners in the IBA community with an opportunity to kickstart their learning ambitions through hundreds of free DataCamp licenses.

The GDSC IBA team carefully developed a rigorous three-stage screening process to identify promising candidates in their community who showed an unquenchable passion for acquiring data skills—held back only by a lack of financial resources.These deserving candidates were not only awarded one-year licenses to DataCamp’s catalog of 400+ courses, interactive projects, Workspace, Certification program, and numerous learning resources. They were also guaranteed a place in GDSC IBA’s Data Science Bootcamp, where they received one-on-one counseling with our trained instructors to facilitate their DataCamp learning journey even further.

A key goal was to invigorate a curiosity for data sciences and encourage learners to explore its numerous branches. We were ecstatic to hear our learners discover their calling to data sciences thanks to this venture.

After receiving a Python Fundamentals Skill Badge, Umair Ahmed, a sophomore at IBA, calls DataCamp “one of the best things that happened” in his university life. “DataCamp gave me a roadmap to pursue my goal to become a data scientist.”

The power of opportunity 

We wanted learners to seize this opportunity to expand their skill sets; to steer their aptitude for data sciences via well-designed skill tracks to help them progress in their learning journeys. It was rewarding to see how many learners completed DataCamp courses, gain multiple badges, and went all the way to complete entire career tracks. A lot of credit goes to our instructors who guided them whenever they had any queries and motivated them every step of the way.

The scholars wanted to learn data tools and software to stay current with the growing impact of data manipulation in the industry. As a result, we made it a priority to equip them with the most in-demand data skills. After granting learners access to resources where they could choose job-related courses, we were thrilled when our learners accredited these GDSC IBA x DataCamp Donates licenses to help them secure employment and internships. Final placements have included multinational companies like Shell and Engro alongside the giants of Pakistan tech like Salsoft, Gaditek, and many more.

We are proud of the impact we’ve created for our learners through this collaboration with DataCamp. It has inspired a wave of data enthusiasts in our community and helped us train talented individuals to use their skills and talent to not only make the most of them for themselves but also contribute to the rest of their learning community as future trainers and instructors.

Ultimately, it’s fostered an ideology of learning unbarred by socioeconomic constraints. 

As we begin a new tenure for our organization, we hope that GDSC IBA 2022-23 holds a future of another successful collaboration with DataCamp, where this community can progress even further with this incredible learning tool at hand. We agree with our learner Syed Nameer Ali when he calls DataCamp “more beneficial for me than any other online platform since the beginning!”