The Data Science Association or Persatuan Sains Data is the initiative of a group of senior academics and professionals from Malaysia and overseas. They share a common belief that data skills - the ability to extract data, to understand it, to process it, to obtain value from it, to visualise it and to communicate it - are essential skills in decision making processes in every area of human endeavour. We speak to 3 members of this association about their challenges in this sector, Dr Halimah Awang, Unni Kumaran Menon & Jon Tay.