On March 1, 2024, Fundação Getulio Vargas’ School of Applied Mathematics (FGV EMAp) held the graduation ceremony for the first group of students to have completed its Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Course. The ceremony, held in FGV’s main building in Rio de Janeiro, was attended by 38 undergraduate students, of whom 21 are studying applied mathematics, 13 are studying data science and four are doing a dual degree.

According to the school’s dean, César Camacho, EMAp’s position in the job marketis extremely satisfactory and underscores the institution’s quality. “In the past, a degree in engineering, law or medicine was enough to ensure a promising career. However, societyhas become more complex and diverse in its demands,so as well as a degree, people need to invest in constant professional development in line with the sophisticated technological advances that are taking place. Our figures show that 100% of EMAp graduates are swiftly hired, including those who choose to do a master’s or doctorate,” he said.

Yuri Saporito, the coordinator of the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Course and the class sponsor, revealed his gratitude for taking part in this moment alongside students who made a difference over the four years they were together. “I couldn’t have wished for a better first class.You were attentive, interested and very participative. This course was envisioned in 2018 during an internal FGV meeting, when I realized that a degree in data science and artificial intelligence would open our doors to students who hadn’t previously considered FGV as an option. It was a huge effort, but we managed to implement the course in mid-2019 and our first class, you guys, started in March 2020,” he said.

Tiago da Silva Henrique, a student on the data science course and a CDMC scholarship holder, was mentioned as an academic highlight.He said he was grateful for the institutional recognition for his performance during his degree. According to him, the graduation ceremony marked the beginning of a long professional journey. He said that the school was very intellectually demanding but offered a safe environment with well-defined objectives for students’ personal development. “More difficult decisions and greater challenges are yet to be faced by me and my colleagues. My feeling, then, is one of proactivity, knowing that my next steps will possibly determine the subsequent years of my career,” he said. He also emphasized the course’s pioneering status, at the forefront of a fast-growing industry that will potentially benefit from modern technical training. “The recent commercial rise of applications based on large language models, such as ChatGPT, reinforces this point,” he concluded.

Twenty-five of the students came from the Center for the Development of Mathematics and Science (FGV CDMC) project. Created by FGV in 2017, this project aims to identify talentedyoungsters in the country’s government schools and offer them the possibility of taking FGV’s undergraduate and graduate courses in Rio de Janeiro.

In recent years, this talent selection project has offered university scholarships to outstanding government school students and medal winners in national mathematics Olympiads. These students are invited to apply to take any of the undergraduate courses offered by FGV in Rio de Janeiro: Applied Mathematics, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Economics, Administration, Social Sciences, Law and Digital Communication.