Members in attendance were from a range of different faculties and institutes: Amsterdam Business School, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Science, Mathematics and Computer Science, Van’t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences, Institute for Advanced Studies, and Faculty of Medicine.

The morning kicked off with a presentation from Laura Hollink (Group Leader of the Human-Centered Data Analytics Group at CWI). Laura spoke to the group about the challenges of designing responsible AI in the culture and media sector, and how these learnings could be applied across different disciplines and research contexts.

This was then followed by a hackathon where DSC members worked together in small groups to apply data science techniques towards a diverse range of challenges, namely:

• investigating differences in information content between Dutch and English Wikipedia pages
• automating detection and counting of tiny eggs and worms in microscope images, and
• building a dashboard using tweet data on air travel and climate.

The ultimate goal of this meeting was to give DSC community members a chance to get to know each other, and to collaborate together in a relaxed and fun environment before the new academic year - and we think that this goal was achieved!

A huge thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s Away Day, with special thanks also to our members Marc Galland, Frans van der Kloet, and Claudia Orellana Rodriguez for preparing and contributing their datasets for the hackathon.

For more information about the DSC Affiliate programme and how to join, please click here or email dsc@uva.nl.