Mike Capone '88 Gives $1 Million to Advance Data Intelligence at Dickinson
Landmark gift to fund student mentorships, internships, research grants and real-world projects—and a new position to connect Dickinson with industry
by Tony Moore
Continuing his generous engagement with Dickinson, Mike Capone '88 has made a transformative $1 million investment in Dickinson's data intelligence efforts, deepening a philanthropic partnership that is reshaping how students engage with one of the defining fields of the modern economy.
The gift establishes the Data Intelligence Initiative, which will fund student mentorships, internship support, research grants and hands-on project experience with real-world applications. It also will create a new position dedicated to building sustained connections between Dickinson and industry—a bridge Capone sees as essential to preparing students for careers that don't yet fully exist.
“The new program director for applied data intelligence will develop new opportunities with partners both on and off campus that will allow our students to engage in meaningful quantitative and data-driven internships and research experiences,” says Dana Somers, associate professor of biology and current director of the Quantitative Reasoning Center, who will oversee the position. “The director will build on the existing Q-Fellows program, expanding it to support more students and provide more structured mentorship, to both students and project partners.”
Capone shares insights with students during a visit to the college's Profiles in Leadership course. In addition to mentoring students through opportunities like this, Capone serves on the college's Board of Trustees. Photo by Joe O'Neill.
The Why & the How
Capone, who for more than eight years served as CEO of Qlik, a global leader in data analytics and AI, spent decades watching the field transform from the inside. That vantage point sharpened his thinking about what Dickinson students need—and what a liberal-arts education uniquely provides.
"The bottleneck is almost never the technology," he says of his years in the industry. "It’s the human layer—people who can look at what the data was telling them, understand the broader context, ask the uncomfortable questions and then communicate a clear path forward to a room full of skeptics. That is a liberal-arts skill set."
What that looks like in practice is already visible. Last fall, a group of Dickinson data analytics students partnered with Kudu Investment Management—led by Rob Jakacki '89—on a semester-long project to help the firm automate its deal-sourcing process. Students built data pipelines, applied natural language processing techniques and developed a ranking framework to help Kudu identify investment opportunities more efficiently. They received academic credit and stipends, and the collaboration will continue indefinitely.
It's exactly the kind of experience Capone's initiative is designed to make possible at scale.
"I want a student who grows up without obvious advantages to walk out of Dickinson with the skills, the experience, the relationships and the confidence to compete with anyone—anywhere," Capone says. "That felt worth investing in."
Real-stakes projects
The initiative builds on the active-learning opportunities that are already hallmarks of the Dickinson education and leverages the college’s strong ties with alumni and community partners.
During the past year, the initiative funded a fellowship for Rose Nguyen ’27 (data analytics, quantitative economics). Through it, she partnered with Project SHARE, a Carlisle food pantry, to analyze survey responses and program participation data. This helped the nonprofit better understand and communicate the program and identify meaningful patterns in participation feedback. She also proposed improvements to future survey questions.
Thao Nguyen ’27 (data analytics, quantitative economics) worked with a local nonprofit to create a Power BI dashboard that tracks program participation and participant ratings and demographics. She also produced more than 300 visualizations to help identify and interpret data patterns as part of a research project led by Professor of Biology Dana Somers.
These projects sharpen the hard and soft skills that capture the attention of potential employers. And the real-stakes nature of the work also creates something perhaps even more valuable, noted Capone.
“[Students] stop thinking of themselves as students learning about data analytics and start thinking of themselves as data professionals who happen to still be in school. That shift in identity is enormously powerful,” he said.
Phase II begins
With the initiative up and running and the new program director’s position funded for five years, thanks to Capone’s initial investment, it’s now time to extend the initiative’s reach. Building on the generosity of the founding gift, Dickinson seeks matching and complementary support to expand faculty development and strengthen academic programs, equipping faculty across disciplines to integrate data-focused approaches into their teaching, research and curricula and to establish a state-of-the-art Data Visualization Lab that will advance the college’s leadership in preparing students to navigate emerging technologies, solve complex challenges and succeed in the world that awaits them after graduation.
“Data analytics and other quantitative fields are evolving incredibly quickly,” says Dick Forrester, professor of mathematics and chair of the Department of Data Analytics. “This funding will help provide faculty with the time and resources needed to stay current with new methods and tools, update existing courses, and develop new courses that reflect where these fields are heading.”
Also important: These cross-disciplinary development opportunities create new teaching and learning experiences for faculty and students outside of the data-analytics program, notes Somers, who oversees the new program director. “Students would then be able to learn data analysis in fields across the curriculum, not just those that are traditionally datacentric,” the biology professor explains.
Capone is excited to see the possibilities continue to grow.
“When I think about what Dickinson is building—combining rigorous data and analytics training with the broad intellectual development of a liberal arts education—I see an institution that is genuinely preparing students … not just to find jobs in the data economy but to lead it,” said Capone. “That’s why I keep investing. And frankly, that’s why I’m proud to be a part of it.”
To learn more about supporting Phase II of the Dickinson Data Intelligence Initiative, contact Rob Beckelheimer, associate vice president for college advancement, at giving@dickinson.edu or 800-543-3809.
Read a full Q&A with Capone on the initiative.
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published July 2, 2026