TransUnion (TRU) Partners With UIC To Promote Data Science

TransUnion (NYSE:TRU) announced yesterday that it has partnered with the University of Illinois at Chicago's (UIC) College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to aid the study of data science. The broader goal is to help address the increasing need for data science expertise.

The partnership aims at creating a position for the TransUnion Professor of Data Science, for which a nation-wide search will be done. The professor will join as a senior faculty member in the Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science department, and work with a large group of researchers of data science across the campus.

TransUnion president and CEO informed, “We’re looking forward to fostering a program with UIC, and bringing more students into this course of study—ultimately leading to greater innovation and technology breakthroughs that we can only imagine today.”

We observe that TransUnion stock has rallied 58.6% over the past year, significantly outperforming the 25.2% growth recorded by the industry it belongs to.

The Bigger Picture

While LinkedIn’s 2017 Emerging Jobs Report lists the data science industry as the second-fastest growing industry, McKinsey projects a shortage of 140,000-190,000 deep analytic talent positions, and 1.5 million analysts and analytics managers in 2018 in the United States alone.

This is naturally a matter of concern for TransUnion, which is a leading provider of data and analytics solutions. It appears, by trying to add more students to the field of data science, the company is paving way for future recruitments from UIC.

For UIC, the partnership will strengthen its capacity of developing undergraduate and graduate curriculums, professional education opportunities and inter-disciplinary research groups.

Other Stocks to Consider

TransUnion currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). Other top-ranked stocks in the broader Business Services sector include Accenture plc (NYSE:ACN) , NV5 Global (NASDAQ:NVEE) and Convergys Corp. (NYSE:CVG) , each carrying a Zacks Rank of 2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

The long-term expected earnings per share growth rates for Accenture, NV5 Global and Bureau Veritas are 10%, 20% and 9%, respectively.

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