Meet Mitch Super, Data Scientist at SAHC
After working as a lawyer for 20 years, Mitch Super (48) thought it was time for something new – something radically different. He decided to make a career switch and follow his passion for computers and data. Sitech Asset Health Center (SAHC) was the perfect opportunity for this. “Sitech Asset Health Center's Data Science Traineeship gave me the opportunity to develop myself in the field of Data Science. Now I'm really passionate about my work.”
In July last year, Mitch started as a trainee at Sitech Asset Health Center. When he heard that Sitech had created its own traineeship for Data Scientists, he immediately signed up and followed an intensive, six-month program that covered the various elements of the profession. As of January this year, he started working as a Data Scientist.
What was your experience of the traineeship?
I have to admit that it was quite challenging. Pieter Geelen, Manager Data & Technology SAHC, immediately presented a hefty book on statistics that we had to read through. “And this is just the introductory book,” he said. I learned a great deal during the traineeship, including statistics and the application of a number of modelling techniques. However, we didn't just learn theory. I gained a lot of practical insights from the engineers themselves. Those insights were enormously important for our work. Having that collaboration with engineers at Sitech is a real source of added value.
What makes it fun for you to work at SAHC?
The diversity really appeals to me, as my job’s broader than just Data Scientist. In addition to writing code and building models, I look at how I can visualize data. This means that my work includes both analysis and visualization. The great thing is that the Data Science landscape is constantly evolving. Within SAHC, we try to implement these latest techniques as quickly as possible, and manage to do so thanks to the efforts of the entire team. It's fantastic!
Which project are you most proud of?
Last year, the entire team worked on Ultragrid – a solution that you can use to automatically generate machine-learning models. You enter data in the front-end, and the back-end then automatically generates the best models. We did this manually when I started the traineeship, and it’d take weeks before we could train a model. Ultragrid makes it possible to do this within a few hours, resulting in huge savings in time and costs for our clients. I’m so proud of this innovation at SAHC and the process industry.
