CATÓLICA-LISBON is today internationally recognized as an institution of excellence for the quality of education. The reputation of our school would certainly not be the same if we did not have some assets, essential for success in learning, such as the partnerships we have with companies.
The link between companies and educational institutions is increasingly relevant. At CATÓLICA-LISBON, it's the companies that help us prepare our students for an increasingly demanding market, by providing unique experiences where scientific knowledge is contextualized in the business world. We do it to prepare our students as good as possible for the labour market, but also to add value to the companies. It's a win-win relationship. While companies help us improve our programs and promote excellence in the preparation of our students, we contribute to the success of businesses by imparting new knowledge, out-of-the-box ideas, and perhaps future employees who can impact their businesses, increasing their competitiveness in the marketplace.
The CurveCatch example and the win-win relationship with CATÓLICA-LISBON
CurveCatch is a Belgian start-up, created in 2020, that promises to revolutionize the online lingerie shopping experience. With a hybrid business model, between online and offline, the start-up uses a data-driven model to achieve the mission of ensuring a 100% personalized and assisted online purchase, as if it were a physical experience, but in the comfort of home. The goal is to achieve a perfect match of the lingerie piece to the needs, measurements and preferences of customers, something difficult to achieve by itself since, according to the start-up, 80% of women do not wear bras that fit them.
The collaboration process between CurveCatch and the master and MBA students of CATÓLICA-LISBON started two years ago, with data science professor, Joren Gijsbrechts, being the connection point. While CurveCatch helps to keep the teaching material relevant by providing challenges, data, and didactic content for Professor Joren's classes, applied through class challenges, practical examples, and guest speakers, CATÓLICA-LISBON helps to create value for CurveCatch's customers and to elevate academic research knowledge by developing research projects for the start-up.
For CurveCatch “so far, Professor Joren has been a touch point to help improve the algorithms we use. We are very happy with the collaboration, and we intend to expand our collaborations as we continue to grow”.
Guilherme da Silva Oliveira, a student of Master's in Business Analytics, considers that the interaction with CurveCatch “allowed me to incorporate my critical thinking with the concepts taught in class to successfully tackle a real problem, much like in a real company. Having contact with real challenges from the business world in the academic context is fundamental to facilitate a successful transition from the classroom to the workplace”.
Also, José Manuel Bonança Chumbo, research assistant in Analytics courses, considers the relationship between academia and the business world to be fundamental. “These types of interactions enrich our learning experience tremendously, but not only. It is also a source of motivation. We immediately connect theory to practice in a real scenario, using cutting-edge knowledge and technologies to solve problems that are relevant in the moment for a business. It's more rewarding than applying our knowledge to a case study for a problem that was solved a long time ago". José Chumbo also adds that in this type of collaboration "we are given an expectation of how the knowledge transmitted by CATÓLICA-LISBON can be applied to solve these problems in an industry that is very relevant and rapidly evolving, such as Machine Learning”.
What has been developed in the classroom?
Data science professor Joren Gijsbrechts, who explains that his classes are “a mixture of theory, in-class challenges such as games, and guest speakers”, mentions that in the Master in Business Analytics “students develop algorithms to solve problems that CurveCatch faces. Our collaboration improves the algorithms of CurveCatch to create more value for consumers”. The student Guilherme details that in the class context was developed “a deep learning algorithm using convolutional neural networks to replace and improve their current manual (’human’) product identification”. Professor Joren explains that “these challenges help students understand additional practical complexities, such as the data gathering process”.
The MBA students had the opportunity to attend a lecture by Kimia Namadchi, CEO of CurveCatch, which allowed them to increase their awareness of the development of specific methods to create value for companies. “These discussions are valuable for students to close the gap between theory and practice, as we directly show where to implement which algorithms”, concludes Professor Joren.
In the future, the goal is to collaborate even more
In the future, the goal is to expand the collaboration with CurveCatch. In addition to initiating new research projects, it is expected that “in the next year, a group of five master students work on their master thesis with CurveCatch" says the professor. "Our role as academics is also to develop student's analytical skills. I believe it is essential to occasionally let students solve real-world challenges such that they are prepared to join firms" he concludes.