The DSC Away Day is an annual get together that is organised exclusively for our Affiliate members. This year, we enjoyed sunshine and sand at the picturesque Castricum Beach!

We had a mixture of new and old members in attendance, coming from the following faculties and institutes:

• Faculty of Dentistry (ACTA)
• Faculty of Humanities (FGw)
• Faculty of Law (FdR)
• Faculty of Medicine (AUMC)
• Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences (FMG)
• Faculty of Science (FNWI - Informatics Institute, Van’t Hoff Institute, Swammerdam Institute for Life Sciences)
• UvA Executive Staff

After a round of introductions, the morning kicked off with the main group activity of the day: Work together in groups to produce any kind of output (e.g. paper, notebook, blog post, video, dataset, presentation, infographic) on a data science related topic. The only real rule? To have fun!

The final outputs from this group exercise were impressive and varied. They consisted of a(n):

• Article about the 10 steps to taming Chat GPT as a Scientist
• Article debunking myths about AI ethics
• Blogpost on experimental approaches with large language models
• Infographic illustrating the different stages of data research

We also heard an engaging presentation from Jakub Zavrel, CEO of Zeta-Alpha, a start-up based in the LAB42 building at Amsterdam Science Park. Jakub shared with us how Zeta-Alpha is building the next generation Neural Discovery Platform for AI and beyond, as well as the various Zeta-Alpha events that all DSC members are welcome to join.

With such beautiful weather, we also made sure to spend as much time as possible outdoors. This included enjoying a delicious beachside lunch, beach walks, and also a refreshing borrel on the patio before saying our goodbyes.  

A huge thank you to everyone who attended and participated throughout the day. We are already excited about next year’s Away Day, and actively taking venue suggestions too!