Summer School is focused on better use of data in nonprofit and government organizations

Data is generally considered the gold of the 21st century. Companies use it, for example, to analyze customer behavior and provide customer recommendations. Nonprofits, on the other hand, often don't have the means to do more with existing data. How they can make better use of it is the topic of the Summer School "Data Science for Social Goods" (DSSG). It will take place from June 6 to August 26 in Kaiserslautern and is organized by the Technische Universität Kaiserslautern (TUK) and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI). Non-profit organizations can apply for projects to be worked on during the Summer School.

The twelve-week program offers various workshops, group work, and lectures that focus on data analysis. Participants will work in small teams on their own projects. For example, this could involve medically relevant data that could be used to detect risks for diseases such as heart attacks and strokes earlier, or that could be used to optimize emergency medical services in a region. It could also be data that can be used to identify factors that prevent school dropouts, increase the chances of the long-term unemployed in the labor market, or reduce the risk of traffic accidents on highways.

"Data Science for Social Good" (DSSG) is a program that helps nonprofits and government agencies do more with their data. It originated with U.S. computer science professor Ryid Ghani, who advised then-U.S. President Barack Obama's 2012 election campaign with his expertise in analytics, technology and data.

In 2013, Ghani held his first DSSG Summer School, providing IT talent with insight on how to use quantitative computing and data analytics to address societal challenges in areas such as education, health, energy, public safety, transportation and economic development.

Professor Dr. Sebastian Vollmer, who has been teaching and researching machine learning applications at the TU Kaiserslautern since last year and heads the Data Science and Its Applications research area at DFKI, will now offer a DSSG Summer School in Kaiserslautern for the first time. The Summer School in Kaiserslautern is a partner program of the DSSG Foundation Summer Fellowship, which is based at the US Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The university in Warwick, England, is also involved.

The offer is aimed at non-profit organizations, which can submit their projects. The deadline for applications is Friday, February 14, 2022.

Currently, it is planned that the Summer School will take place in Kaiserslautern. However, due to the pandemic, there may be changes.

Further information and registration:
sebastian.vollmer.ms/dssg/
sebastian.vollmer.ms/dssg/CallForParnters.pdf
www.dssgfellowship.org/faq-page/
www.dssgfellowship.org/dssg-project-partners/

Contact
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Vollmer
Phone: +49 (0)631 20575-7601
E-Mail: vollmer[at]cs.uni-kl.de