How The Lab Works

The Lab is where students work on the consulting project, the capstone of the MBAN and MMAI programs. Over the course of eight months, students work as analytics and artificial intelligence consultants. Real client data is ingested onto the lab platform, students perform data cleansing, verification and QA, and uncover insights using advanced analytics and artificial intelligence methods and visualization tools. Students collaborate closely with clients, creating key career connections while gaining real-world experiential learning.

Key Project Steps

Check out the milestones of every Lab project:

MBAN
MMAI
  • June

    Proposal Submissions

    Sponsoring clients submit projects tackling high-impact business issues where data is key to developing actionable insights

  • June-July

    Project Evaluation

    Schulich reviews submissions in collaboration with the potential clients

  • July

    Project Acceptance

    Agreements and NDAs are signed

  • August

    Team Creation

    The Lab matches 3 to 4 students to each project

  • September

    Proposal & SOW

    Students and clients meet, develop a proposal and SOW, and initiate a project kick-off

  • October

    Data Acquisition Milestone (ETL)

    Students load project data into the Lab platform and start transforming it

  • November

    Methodology Milestone

    Methods and techniques are evaluated and selected

  • January

    Preliminary

    Initial insights and outcomes are reviewed

  • March

    Insights Delivery

    The final report, complete with actionable insights, is delivered to the sponsoring client