“Some of the best learning is when you actually figure out how to do something yourself.” – Ashlee Valente, Data+ Organizer and Bio-Computational Scientist at Mimetics
Professor Massimo Fornasier of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) had another reason to visit Duke this Fall when he gave a mini-course for the Mathematics Department: he wants to bring Duke’s Data+ summer program to TUM!
In addition to teaching the mini-course and meeting with faculty collaborators at Duke, Dr. Fornasier consulted with Data+ program organizers Paul Bendich, Ashlee Valente, and iiD director Robert Calderbank to strategize on creating a Data+ program at TUM. This program, called the TUM Data Innovation Lab (TUM-DI-LAB), will provide interdepartmental data science projects as well as projects with industry. Other top schools in EuroTech and the US will also participate in the program to “explore data-driven approaches to interdisciplinary challenges”. Like the Data+ program at Duke, the TUM-DI-LAB will put students in small project teams that will learn to marshal, analyze, and visualize data and gain broad exposure to the modern world of data science. “The TUM Data Innovation Lab stems from the enthusiasm and curiosity of its participants, students, companies, and researchers. It’s an open space where creativity is our common language,” Dr. Fornasier said.
TUM-DI-LAB started in summer 2017 with 3 data projects: Climate Change and Health, Finding Parking Spaces, and Machine Learning Playing GO. While the TUM-DI-LAB started with only Master’s students, the program is expected to grow. “I am delighted to see that Data+ works as well in Munich, Germany as it does in Durham, North Carolina,” says iiD director Robert Calderbank.
iiD looks forward to the possibility of potential project collaborations in data analysis as Data+ and the TUM-DI-LAB programs develop!