New Jersey Big Data Alliance (NJBDA)
and Rutgers MBS Externship Exchange
Joint Externship Program           
Opportunity for Company/Business- Spring 2022

The NJBDA is seeking a Company/Business for our Spring 2022 NJBDA-MBS Externship Project. A team of 5 students from member schools will work on a project for this business over the course of the semester (beginning in early Feb. 2022).  The company should have a presence in one of the following locations:  Cumberland County, Newark or New Brunswick, NJ.

Projects appropriate for an Externship include:
Data Analytics (machine learning, visualization, dashboards, etc.; coding (R, Python, MatLab, etc.)
or Financial Modeling.

To participate in the Externship the company/mentor should:

  • Provide a clear statement of the scope of work, project deliverables and timeline.
  • Assign a representative to meet with the team on a regular basis (approx. weekly for 30 min. to an hour)
  • Be available for a maximum of 1-2 hours per week during the semester (to attend the weekly meeting, provide data or other information, and answer any follow-up questions).

Student teams bring a diverse set of skills and work a combined 24 – 30 hours per week on the project.  Externships through this program are provided by the Rutgers Masters in Business Science (MBS) Externship Program and the NJBDA via a grant from the US Economic Development Administration (US-EDA).The ultimate goal of the program is improved business operations and job creation for the participating company.

Note: Participation in the Externship is at no cost to the company/business.

 

Past Projects

The NJBDA Externship has run three successful projects over the past year and a half.  Details are below.

  • Our first externship project kicked off in Fall of 2020. The student team members from Rider, Rutgers and Seton Hall assisted a Cumberland County Produce Company by creating a dashboard to visualize historical and current commodity pricing.  The dashboard was customized to allow the organization to look at specific critical elements such as commodity type, pack size, shipping point location, etc.  The end product allowed the organization to more quickly understand pricing and trends in order to make strategic decisions that could impact their revenues and ultimately hiring.

 

  • In Spring 2021 a Newark Start-up Company focused on game-based training was looking for an analysis tool to help them better demonstrate the value-added results from their product. The student team members from New Jersey Institute of Technology, Princeton and Rutgers, demoed the product, provided user feedback and developed a dashboard that could be used as a future framework for testing and ongoing new product development. Product-Line expansion could ultimately allow them to bring in additional revenues and increase staff.

 

  • A team of five students from Felician, Montclair, Rowan and Rutgers worked with a New Brunswick non-profit during Fall 2021.  The non-profit was looking for a baseline measure of the economic condition of a select group of area businesses (with an ultimate goal of helping the businesses obtain grants and other business-improvement resources.)  Students reviewed literature and best practices in other organizations to determine what to measure and created a benchmark survey with five key categories. The survey was deployed and will be used over time to collect longitudinal information.  The team also designed a dashboard to assist the non-profit to quicky review key data points and potentially measure the impact of programs over time.

Interested? For more information contact Lori Dars, Senior Advisor, Rutgers MBS Externship Exchange – lori.dars@rutgers.edu 

You can download PDF of this press release

NJBDA Externship Opportunity for Spring 2022 and Past Project Summary