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Angelica Lo Duca
Angelica Lo Duca

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How to Turn your Data Science idea into a Funded Project

All the Data Scientists hide at least on Data Science idea in their heart. However, due to time constraints or lack of money, they do not transform their ideas into a project.
In this article, I propose a strategy to turn your idea into a Data Science project. The adopted methodology is based on the following steps:

  • Write a draft of the project proposal
  • Search for partners and collaborators (optional)
  • Search for funds

Adapt the project draft to the funder template and Submit it

1 Write a draft of the project proposal

The first step towards funding your project involves writing a first draft your project. While writing the full draft, try to answer to the following questions:
Which topic does my project cover?
Which problem does my project solve?
Usually, a project proposal, is composed of the following items:

  • Summary
  • Objective of the project
  • Similar Projects
  • Project architecture
  • Workplan
  • Impact on Society
  • Description of the actors of the project
  • Gantt Diagram

1.1 Summary

The summary is an overview of the project. If your project deals with Data Science, the summary should contain the most important keywords related to Data Science, such as Machine Learning, Data Analysis, Data Visualisation, Artificial Intelligence and so on.
In order to build a successful proposal, the project should also deal with at least one of the hot topics related to Data Science, such as those described int this interesting article by
ODSC - Open Data Science.

The summary should resume all the parts of the project, including a description of the context, the objectives, the impact for the society and so on.

1.2 Objective of the project

Your project should solve at least one problem, otherwise it will not be funded. For example, as a data scientist, you could propose a new algorithm for Machine Learning, implement a new interesting dashboard for storytelling, or build a Data Journalism story. Anyway, the objective of your project should be very clear.

In general, while writing this section, you should focus on two kinds of objectives:
general objectives, such as providing a dashboard for storytelling specific objectives, such as exploiting the proposed dashboard to understand the behaviour of ants over time.

This section should be very clear and no ambiguity should appear.

https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-turn-your-data-science-idea-into-a-funded-project-f919dbaff104

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