Aug 01 2014 | Posted by SSSandy

Crunching Numbers: WUN Big Data Workshop

From climate change to poverty, health epidemics to food security, economics to culture; ever-growing research into big data is revolutionizing the way we think about the world’s most demanding issues. Today we have access to an historically unprecedented volume of data, driven by rapid technological developments.

Big data refers to the massive amounts of complex data that are difficult to manipulate and understand using traditional processing methods.  Data Science is focused on the concepts, methods, and applications for extracting meaning from big data. 

In order to use big data to address world problems we must be able to capture and understand the data, so it can have a positive impact on our lives – the applications are limitless. For WUN, big data research can be integrated into our Global Challenges and beyond. WUN, as a global consortium of leading research-intensive universities, is uniquely placed to address this challenge with international, interdisciplinary perspectives.

The Data Science (Big Data) Exploratory Workshop will be hosted by the University of Rochester on 22 August 2014, and will provide an opportunity to explore where partners’ interests are sufficiently aligned to warrant deeper collaboration. WUN members will explore where WUN has the greatest impact in this burgeoning field of scientific exploration.

Areas of focus for targeted discussions will include medical and life sciences (genomics/bioinformatics, brain sciences, medical informatics/health prediction); social networks and data mining; computing infrastructure and data preservation and organizing data science within a research university (discussion of research structures and educational programs for best developing the field).

For more information, click here or email Scott Steele