GMO Payment Gateway, Inc. (GMO-PG) hereby announces the start of collaboration with Graduate School of Information and Science Technology, the University of Tokyo on "the University of Tokyo Data Science School" from April 18, 2018 to support development of data scientists. The aim is to develop data scientists with high-level technologies who can derive new values from big data. GMO-PG provides mock data based on its payment- and financial service-related data for the program.

GMO-PG will continue to support research and personnel development for cutting-edge IT technologies under industry-academia collaborations to bring about innovations in payment and financial service areas.

With the advancement and diversification of IT utilization, an increasing number of businesses are taking advantage of various data, including activity and transaction records accumulated through internet on top of personal data. This trend has led to the rising demand in various businesses for data scientists, who are the experts in data science, studies of analyzing enormous amount of data (big data) to find rules and relations for problem solving and of its analysis methods. Despite the expectation for bigger utilization of cutting-edge IT technologies including big data in various markets, resources with such technologies are estimated to run short by approximately 48 thousands in 2020 in Japan,* making resource development an urgent priority.

Meanwhile, Graduate School of Information and Science Technology at the University of Tokyo founded an education program for its graduate students, "the University of Tokyo Data Science School" in April 2016 to train data scientists with high-level technologies. However, data scientist development needs academia-industry collaboration to enjoy the big data and business knowledge of companies, in addition to specialized education at higher education institutions such as universities.

This is why GMO-PG has decided to support developing data scientists through collaboration with the University of Tokyo Data Science School. Specifically, GMO-PG provides mock data based on its abundant payment- and financial service-related data to the school for data analysis and learning their implications on business. GMO-PG also sends its data scientists to the lectures for bilateral discussions with students to help students develop business problem solving abilities.

GMO-PG will continue to support research and development of cutting-edge technologies and development of human resource to deliver innovations in payment- and financial service-related areas.

*Source: "Study of Recent Trends and Future Estimates Concerning IT Human Resources" published in June 2016 by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. Cutting edge IT resources refer to resources of cutting edge technologies such as big data, IoT and artificial intelligence.

"The University of Tokyo Data Science School" delivered by Graduate School of Information and Science Technology at the University of Tokyo is an education program targeting its graduate students for the purpose of developing data scientists. Through the three courses of [basic course] for learning mathematical methods and information process technology, [advanced course] for developing business problem-solving abilities, and [practice course] for studying progressive data science, the lectures aim to assist students develop methods of deriving knowledge with high social values from big data.