SDS2022
With more than double the attendees compared to last year’s conference, the SDS2022 was a great success with 580 participants. An exciting start, expert talks on topics particularly pertinent in data science, and a buzzing apero made the day turn into evening – since the easing of the pandemic, people are eager to interact more extensively, and we are proud to be a platform to enable this. A special thanks to our presenting partner D ONE and our scientific partner, the Datalab of the Zurich University of Applied Science!
Part one, with the workshops on June 22nd, took place in various location hubs around central Switzerland, mainly in Zurich, with great feedback garnered.
On the next day, part two in Lucerne featured talks on topics such as developing, deploying and operating machine learning-based systems (MLOps), Cybersecurity, AI for Humanity, and Data Ethics and Fairness.
With what kind of consequential topics did speakers engage the participants? Technological innovation can no longer work on greater-than-human efficiency alone. This means that data-driven approaches cannot neglect responsible AI which has been trained on societal factors such as ethics, fairness and privacy. Industries like insurance and security are tackling this delicate topic with data ethics experts.
Speaking of security, with tech becoming smarter, so is the hacking potential and so-called data poisoning, where training data gets infiltrated, tampered with and corrupted, leading to false outcomes or even harmful consequences. Yet most media have remained surprisingly quiet on this topic; so experts and industry leaders – stay vigilant and plan countermeasures from the beginning when deploying models!
We were honored to host our two keynote speakers, Roberto Capobianco and Francesca Dominici:
Roberto presented Sophy, the AI racing agent from Sony, developed through reinforcement learning. What makes Sophy so noteworthy is its balance of cooperation – following racing rules and etiquette – whilst pushing difficult, winning maneuvers, influenced humans to also use higher risk steering. This paves the way for a new generation of AI in complex physical systems.
Francesca’s talk regarding covid, climate and human health was particularly timely. She masterfully demonstrated the ways in which data can be used to advocate, shape and defend climate policy by presenting evidence of climate risks.
Participants voted for their favorite poster video and presentation in the app. The winners received a certificate at the award ceremony.
| The unmissable SDS apero was a welcome and fun chapter in the conference. After three years of mostly zoom meetings, people didn’t want to leave until late! With such a stunning view at lake Lucerne, who could blame them? Enough from us – here is what some of our attendees said about their experience (opens in a new window): |
| And that’s just a fraction of the presentations and experiences. Curious for more? Next year’s SDS2023 will be in Zurich on June 23rd, and with an even greater on-site emphasis. For a feel of the event, look out for our flashback video soon. Thank you to the sponsors that made this event possible, to the speakers that breathed life into the conference, and the attendees who participated actively, intelligently and insightfully. Follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to get sneak-peaks, deadlines and sign-up notices. See you in 2023 – Together we move faster! |
