For students looking to stand out in today’s competitive job market, summer offers more than just a break from classes — it’s one of the best opportunities to build valuable skills in analytics and AI. As industries across the globe rapidly adopt data-driven decision-making and artificial intelligence, employers are increasingly looking for candidates who can work with data, uncover insights, and understand modern AI-powered technologies. The good news? Students don’t need to wait until graduation to start developing these skills.
Summer creates the perfect environment to explore analytics and AI in a flexible, low-pressure way that can have a lasting impact on future careers.
This year, in April, we inaugurated two new Centers of Excellence ( CoE) under the Qlik Academic Program, in the Silicon Valley of India, i.e Bangalore. The new CoEs mark a new beginning for training and skilling students in Qlik technologies along with other activities like datathons.
Reva University is one of the leading Universities in the State of Karnataka and is ranked among the top universities in the region. The School of Computer Science and Engineering took the lead in this initiative and has established the CoE. Strategic Partner of the Qlik Academic Program, ICT Academy established the connection with Reva and ensured that arrangements were made as per the requirements of the CoE.
The second CoE was established in Sai Vidya Institute of Technology ( SVIT) which is a well known institution for engineering students. Many students have earned their degree qualification from here. The Department of Computer Science Engineering have been coordinating to establish the CoE. Many initiatives are planned by SVIT to take this engagement ahead.
The previous CoEs are functioning successfully in VJIT Hyderabad, Anurag University Hyderabad and Kristu Jayanti University Bangalore. Many students have got trained and qualified from the CoEs here. Along with this, they have hosted various events including datathons successfully.We hope to establish more CoEs this year and create a physical space for students to get trained under the Qlik Academic Program.
To learn more about the academic program, please visit: qlik.com/academicprogram
...View More
For many years, data analytics education focused primarily on building dashboards and visualizing historical data. While these skills remain important, the analytics landscape is rapidly evolving. Today, organizations are looking for graduates who can do far more than create charts and reports. They need students who can work with AI-powered analytics, understand predictive thinking, and interact with data in more intelligent and conversational ways.
Something quietly remarkable happened in the first quarter of 2026. While the public conversation was still asking whether AI agents would really change business, Gartner reported that 40% of enterprise applications are expected to integrate task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from less than 5% a year ago. G2's August 2025 survey of enterprise buyers found that 57% of companies already had AI agents in production, not as chatbots, but as autonomous systems executing workflows, monitoring compliance, and coordinating decisions across business functions.
For those of us who work at the intersection of data, analytics, and higher education, this isn't a distant trend. It's a curriculum question.
The shift is not from manual to automated. It's from tools to teammates.
For two decades, the defining promise of business intelligence has been "self-service analytics", empower every user to query, visualize, and explore data themselves. In the agentic era, the paradigm changes. AI agents are not a new tool in the analyst's toolkit; they are analysts. They plan multi-step tasks, call APIs, reason across data sources, and increasingly execute actions without waiting for a human prompt.
At Qlik Connect 2026, the message was direct: enterprises are closer to agentic AI than they think, because the foundation they already built, governed data, trusted metrics, clear business logic — is exactly what agents need to operate reliably. In February, the general availability of Qlik's Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server made it possible for third-party assistants, including Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT, to access governed enterprise data through Qlik's APIs rather than scraping dashboards. The dashboard is no longer the endpoint. It's one of many surfaces where a decision gets made.
The new skills gap is not technical. It's architectural.
Here is the uncomfortable reality: Gartner projects that over 40% of agentic AI projects will fail by 2027, not because the models aren't capable, but because legacy systems, poor data architectures, and weak governance can't support autonomous execution. Deloitte's 2026 State of AI in the Enterprise report, based on a survey of 3,235 leaders across 24 countries, found that only 25% of organizations have moved 40% or more of their AI pilots into production, and just 21% have a mature governance model for autonomous AI agents.
The scarce capability is no longer "who can build a dashboard." It is:
Who can design a KPI dictionary an agent can trust?
Who understands bounded autonomy,where humans set the rules and agents execute within them?
Who can distinguish explainable reasoning from confident hallucination?
Who can architect a data product that an agent can consume without a human in the middle?
These are not niche skills reserved for data engineers. They are the new baseline for anyone graduating into a workforce where, by 2028, Gartner estimates 15% of day-to-day decisions will be made autonomously.
The LATAM opportunity
This is where Latin America has a genuine strategic window. Our universities often face the critique of "catching up" on technology adoption. In the agentic era, that framing is misleading, the agentic shift resets the starting line for everyone. Institutions, anywhere in the world, that graduate students fluent in data governance, explainable AI, and human-agent collaboration will be the ones supplying the talent that enterprises are already scrambling to hire.
According to DataCamp's 2026 State of Data & AI Literacy Report, 88% of enterprise leaders say basic data literacy is important for day-to-day work, 60% report a data skills gap in their organization, and organizations with mature literacy programs are nearly twice as likely to see strong AI returns. The companies that will hire our graduates next year are telling us, in plain terms, what they need.
What universities can do now
Three practical moves that don't require launching a new degree program:
Teach governance alongside analytics. Every data course should include a module on trust, lineage, and explainability, not as an afterthought, but as the foundation that makes agents usable.
Shift from tool training to platform fluency. Students don't need to master one vendor; they need to understand how governed data, semantic layers, and agent orchestration fit together.
Build industry-embedded learning paths. Programs like the Qlik Academic Program exist precisely because real agentic work happens on real data with real stakes. Classroom theory is not enough.
The agentic era will not be defined by which models win. It will be defined by which people, and which regions,learned to work alongside them first.
By giving students, professors, and universities free access to analytics software, learning content, and certifications, the Qlik Academic Program helps education stay aligned with the data trends shaping 2026 and prepares learners for the jobs of tomorrow.
Join our global community for free: Qlik Academic Program: Creating a Data-Literate World
Share
...View More
Over the past four years, Katherine has integrated Qlik into her teaching across public health informatics, healthcare analytics, and nursing informatics education. This powerful platform has helped students transform complex datasets into meaningful insights that support informed decision-making in healthcare and population health. Through hands-on learning experiences, students gain practical skills in analyzing data, identifying trends, and developing solutions that can improve both patient and community outcomes.
Manikant says, “I feel truly honored to be recognized as a Qlik Educator Ambassador after many years of advocating analytics education. Through this role, I look forward to connecting with educators across the world, learning from global best practices, and contributing to the promotion of data literacy"
Manikant has been recognized as a “Gems of Mentor India” by the Atal Innovation Mission under NITI Aayog for mentoring school students and encouraging them to develop digital and innovation skills aligned with the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.
Gabriel Geovanni Navassi Díaz quit his job. Not to step back. To move forward on his own terms.
"I quit my job to become a more present father," he says simply. But here's the thing: he didn't choose family over his career. He wove them together. He became a consultant while teaching across two universities in Guatemala, and kept one eye sharp on analytics and AI.
"This is an exciting season," he reflects. "Many of the things I have taught for years are now becoming even more relevant in the market."
When you know what matters, you teach others to see it too. Today, we're welcoming Gabriel to the Qlik Educator Ambassador community for the first time.
At Linköping University, Alexander Flaig isn’t just teaching analytics — he’s rethinking how we prepare students for a world increasingly shaped by AI.
Returning as a Qlik Educator Ambassador for 2026, Alexander continues to evolve his course beyond traditional boundaries, combining hands-on analytics, data literacy, and a growing focus on artificial intelligence.
We are delighted to once again recognize Blerim Emruli, Assistant Professor at Lund University, as a returning Qlik Academic Program Educator Ambassador. Over the years, Blerim has been a strong advocate for data literacy, analytics education, and the integration of industry tools into academic programs. His work continues to make a meaningful impact at the Lund University School of Economics and Management (LUSEM), where he teaches courses such as Decision Support Systems, Business Intelligence, and Business and Artificial Intelligence, helping students develop the analytical skills required in today’s data-driven world.
We’re proud to welcome back Angelika Klidas, a Qlik Educator Ambassador since 2021, who continues to make a tremendous impact on students and the wider data community in the Netherlands. Her passion for Qlik and commitment to teaching data & AI literacy continues to inspire students and fellow educators alike.
