Data Science Community Project

We spend years living in a certain city where we obtain a degree and where we slowly build our social life. Eventually, we create more bonds with the place itself as well. We become a part of the community. And yet, after a few years, we face the decision, whether to stay or move elsewhere. This decision could be based on a variety of factors and reasons; one of the main ones though is building your future career. But have you ever wondered how you can contribute to the transformation of the city or the region where you live by changing the situation for the better

This hackathon is a tribute to Maastricht and Limburg, the place that has become a second home for some of us.

Together, we want to solve regional issues related to employability and put new ideas into practice. Our goal is to create more opportunities and reasons to stay in this amazing place. We do so by inviting participants to work on existing challenges faced by the private and governmental sector in the region. And the best part of it is that you can make a real contribution as the winning solutions are going to be further implemented into life!

What Comes to Your Mind When You Hear „Data Science“?

To better understand the needs, thoughts, and wishes of our existing Data Science community, we conducted a survey. Next to demographic data, we could also collect valuable qualitative data through open ended questions. E.g. „What comes to your mind when you hear „data science“?

The results are:

The majority of our community is younger than 45 years and has at least a master degree. Students, UM staff and external members are somewhat equally distributed. Their faculty/employment background, however, is too diverse for concrete categorization.

The community stays in contact with the IDS via the website, Facebook, but also via mouth to mouth communication (e.g. colleges)

The majority of the community shows professional interest in data science however also personal interests exists

The community is interest in follow topics: Machine learning, deep learning, data mining, ethic of AI, data science tat command line, reproducible workflows, big data, cloud computing, parallel computing, AI

Next to the current workshops, the community likes to see lecture series, interactive workshops, internal and external university intervention, and especially social meet ups like the Scrum club

Suggestions from the community to promote IDS events in faculty: Flyers, mail lists, newsletters, demonstrations of how people could use data science tools for own work/projects/resreach (many UM workers and students do not realize how tools and software could benefit their research)

As one of the biggest and influential technical universities in the Netherlands, we decided to take a look the Data Science Center at the TU in Eindhoven to investigate and evaluate their activities in order to find inspirations. With the help of this research we want to develop future activities for the Institute of Data Science at Maastricht University that lead to strengthening of their Data Science Community.

Results of the research

To further community building in the academic sector, the Data Science Institute at UM should think about establishing a regular lecture series in which lectures would be held once a week for a certain period. This project can be mirrored as the concept of Lecture series held by i.e. the “Studium Generale”. In this series Data Science topics which are relevant to nowadays’ societies should be addressed, for example Artificial Intelligence or how the use of robots in health care systems will affect the employability in this sector.

Are You Curious How The Workshop Looks Like?

The Institute of Data Science Maastricht organize various events and workshop about the diverse aspect of Data Science. Our team member Marcus attended to the first workshop by the institute this Tuesday. During the workshop, the Institute of Data Science  shared their knowledge about the software „Docker“, which is a container infrastructure for software applications. Containers make it possible to run whole application stacks from a single configuration file.

At the begging of the workshop, Docker was compared with other virtual machines and its unique properties were emphasized. During the hands on sessions, Marcus and the other participants learned how to use the “docker” command and learned to build whole systems with docker-compose.

Despite the fact that Marcus had no previous knowhow about coding, due to his specialization in Psychology, he still gathered many new useful insights about Containers and how he could apply it in his future work processes.

The Institute of Data Science Maastricht offers many workshops about different topics (e.g. Blockchain) during the upcoming months. Everyone who is interested in Data Science or just want to get in touch with it for the very first time should definitely visited the workshops.

Upcoming workshops!

15.03.2018    Workshop  Blockchain for science

12.04.2018    Workshop  Machine Learning

31.05.2018    Workshop  Crowdsourcing

Where Are We Now?

Vast amounts of data are being generated across all segments of society. If taken advantage of, these data offer an unprecedented opportunity to accelerate scientific discovery, to improve healthcare and wellbeing, and to strengthen our communities. Data Science is an interdisciplinary field concerning the scientific methods, systems and workflows used to obtain insights from data

Value proposition

We are a pioneering, university-wide network of data-driven researchers at an institution with more than 25 years’ experience in Data Science education and research. Our community consists of multidisciplinary teams that address significant scientific problems and major societal issues through and related to data science including social, legal and ethical concerns in a wide range of academic disciplines.

Research

We have identified three key research themes to focus our efforts on:

Accelerating scientific discovery

Improving clinical care and well-being

Empowering communities

Education

We have identified two primary objectives in education:

Promote and strengthen existing data science programs and courses at Maastricht University

Develop new interfaculty data science programs and courses

Community

Experts in Data Science from different application fields will meet in multi-disciplinary teams to share and combine their knowledge in order to create data driven innovations

Upcoming Events:

1.     Blockchain and Science – March 15th, 14:00 – 17:00

For more information about this workshop and to sign up go to: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/events/blockchain-and-science

2.   Crossing Borders in Arts & Heritage – March 18th/19th, 12:30 – 17:00

For more information about this workshop and to sign up go to:

Institution Website!

Are you curious what is inside of the Institute of Data Science? Then you have to visit this link

Institution Video Introduction

Alternatively, you also will get a better understanding of Institute of Data Science by watching this video

Prof. Michel Dumontier Video

Is that all enough? We don’t think so! An inspiring introduction by our Distinguished Professor of Data Science, Prof. Michel Dumontier, will complete you to start knowing the institution. Follow this link

How we deliver the project?

Through this platform, we will keep you update our progress in strengthening the Data Science community in and around Maastricht by some following steps. Firstly, in this menu/tags options, you can find any information related to Institute of Data Science. Specifically, you can get much information about the institution current activities and focus, including links to get know in person with the Distinguished Professor of Data Science, Prof. Michel Dumontier. Secondly, we will bring you deeper to see what are the needs in regards growing the community. Thus we will report some of our findings including surveys and some analysis about current and what other universities do related to Data Science. Lastly, approaching to end of the project we will report how we design, plan, and implement the diverse activities of the community.

Who Are We?

Before we go deeper into the project, we would like to bring you meet us in person by reading our short introduction below. So we are four students coming from different study programs at Maastricht University coming together with our diverse background, to build a great diverse team

First, let’s meet Marcus! He is a Health and Social Psychology Master students who like painting and reading. In addition, he suggests us to follow his book tip, which is read Freakonomics by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt. Marcus is really enthusiast with the growing of Data Science, as he believes that Data Science could potentially help human in almost all aspects. More specifically, he knows that putting an effort to create flourishing Data Science community will give a valuable information as well as give him an encouraging thought. Lastly, his introduction will be closed by his own quotes à “I believe a unified, federal Europe will empower mankind to flourish in prosperity and harmony” – Marcus Weber.

Next, we have Phyllis! A 24 years old student who currently pursue a Master Degree in Business Intelligence. She enjoys sports a lot, especially swimming, but at the same time, she is also an enthusiast food (moreover everything with garlic and olive oil). There are many fun facts about her, such as her fear with a spider, having a dream job as a professional reader, and about her guilty pleasure which is chocolate. Finally, she has special inspired quotes from Albert Einstein which could trigger us, “I have no special talent, I am only passionately curious”.

Then, let’s meet another girl, Paula! Master students of European Studies on Society, Science, and Technology from Germany. She is 21 years old and born with many unique hobbies, such as horse riding and handball. As wish lists, she really wants to go to Indonesia, Australia, and Central America. However, if you want to make her happy, please don’t give her something related to Toads (emoji). Lastly, her closing statement would be a quotes from Winston Churchill, which mentioned that “Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm”

Last but not least, let’s meet the last member of the group, Tika! The only Asian students in the group, she is from Indonesia and now pursuing her Master program in Work and Organizational Psychology. The only sports that she can do is running, therefore she enjoyed it much! Additionally, in regards to a travel destination, she would rather choose something with nature scenery instead of the modern one. However, she comes with fun facts that she is not eating rice at all, even though almost all Indonesian people eat rice. Lastly, she has her own definition of success, which is “The biggest success is when you can deeply know yourself better” – Tika