Phastar recently embarked on a collaboration with Ishango.ai to host two aspiring data scientists to work on an innovative data science project. Ishango is a social enterprise that provides graduates from Africa the opportunity to gain the specialized skills required to work within the data science industry through fellowships with global companies.
This was a great opportunity for the fellows to gain experience within the CRO world, but also for experts from within PHASTAR to gain input and insight from a different perspective.
After providing the project brief to Ishango, Phastar were introduced to candidate fellows and were able to discuss the project concept and high level expectations. From the start, the fellows were engaged and enthusiastic about the project and keen to get started.
A project kick off meeting was held, with the Phastar team introducing the project, the overall goals, tasks and timelines. The team from Ishango included two fellows and two mentors; experienced data scientists who oversaw the project delivery and provided technical input and guidance. The Phastar team included experts from data science and data management.
The two fellows worked remotely from an office in Ghana alongside other fellows involved with the program. The project focussed on the application of AI approaches to drive efficiencies in medical coding. The Phastar/Ishango team met twice weekly to discuss the approaches and progress of the project including successes, challenges, and aims for the following week. The Ishango fellows routinely prepared a presentation of the previous weeks work and progress which ensured everyone was aligned and kept up-to-date in terms of the project status and next steps. The meetings were a great opportunity for the fellows to ask some often-challenging questions to the Phastar team and to explain, rationalise and justify the AI approach.
At the end of the 8-week fellowship the two fellows presented their work to a wider Phastar team, introducing the project, explaining the approach, answering questions and providing some thoughts for the next steps. It was agreed that this was a very positive and fruitful experience for both the Ishango fellows and the Phastar team.
Please look out for our next blog to find out more about how the fellows faced challenges head on, as they started to really understand the current process and how it became clear there were many considerations that would need to be taken into account. Read more about ishango.ai here.
