Hosted by the LSE Data Science Institute (DSI), this special event saw LSE President and Vice Chancellor Minouche Shafik joined by Sir Tim Berners-Lee for a discussion chaired by DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit.

In this wide-ranging discussion, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, outlined his thoughts on  the next generation of the Web, also known as Web 3.0.

Organised as part of the 'DSI Squared' partnership between the Data Science Institutes from both Imperial College London and the London School of Economics, this event provided an overview of generative AI and large language models (LLMs) and their implications for the knowledge economy and society writ broadly.  

Over two days at Imperial College London and The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), participants explored the technical basis, future directions, industry applications, and consequences of generative AI, with particular attention to the knowledge economy and intellectual workers.

The exploration of these topics included why the tools are powerful, whether they are intelligent or just dazzling prediction machines, and what those answers mean for a range of knowledge work.Since we are research-driven educational institutions spanning very technical subjects and specialisations in the social sciences, especial consideration was given to the consequences for academia and education as tools such as ChatGPT challenge traditional approaches to teaching, assessment, and research. 

Find more information about the event here.

DSI Squared Networking Event and Research Grants Scheme Launch
10 March 2023

This bilateral networking event connected researchers with an interest in data science from LSE and Imperial College as part of our ‘DSI Squared’ series. All LSE and Imperial data science researchers were welcome to participate in this opportunity to meet and share their current and planned work through short conversations.

When it comes to data science research and its impact, LSE’s strengths in the social sciences naturally complement Imperial’s strengths in science, technology, and medicine. In line with the aim to see these conversations grow into potential research collaborations, the DSI Squared partnership was pleased to announce that funding is now available to support these projects via the exciting new DSI Squared Research Grants Scheme.

The full details of the DSI Squared Small Grants Scheme were be outlined at this event, including application deadlines, judging criteria, and the value of potential awards.

The Scheme will consider applications for grants to fund data science research and research-related activities (including dissemination of findings and public outreach) from those based at LSE and Imperial College London.

LSE Careers Industry-led Skills Seminar Programme

This programme offers organisations the opportunity to showcase how academic knowledge can be applied to an industry context and offers students the chance to develop their understanding of different sectors and roles through interactive case studies and group activities.

The programme covers a range of academic disciplines, including data science. For example, a recent session focused on 'The impact of AI on international development'.

Careers in tech for non-tech students panel

Thursday 6 October (18:00 - 19:00)

This panel is designed to support you to develop your knowledge of career options in the technology sector, without having a computer science or other tech-related degree.

It brings together LSE alumni from across a wide range of careers in tech to discuss their careers, the opportunities available, and the challenges they've met. You will also be able to explore the tech sector, its main stakeholder, its challenges and trends, as well as the skills required.

Panellists:

Christian Laffin, Product Manager at Sysdig
Graduated from LSE in 2015 with a BSc in Social Policy. Started my career in the UK government, joining the Civil Service Fast Stream, specifically the Digital and Technology stream, and then took a permanent role. During my time in government, I worked on several major digital transformation programmes across borders, immigration, national security, tax and benefits. After nearly 6 years in central government, I decided it was time for a different challenge and joined Wise, a fintech based here in London as Product Manager for their cloud infrastructure, though in the last few months joined Sysdig, a US-based cloud security startup as Product Manager. 

Dylan Shaw, Regional Programme Manager at Google
Working in political and security risk roles in London after graduating LSE with a BSC in IR & Modern History in 2015, Dylan joined Uber during its acceleration phase and performed various security risk management roles across EMEA. He helped prepare his department for the company’s largest business acquisition and for its initial public offering, and helped support rapid geographic and business growth in the region. He completed an MSc. from UCL during this time. Dylan has now joined Google in 2021 to develop novel and innovative security programmes across EMEA & APAC.

Johannes Svanberg, Technology Strategy Consultant at Accenture
Johannes is currently a Senior Technology Strategy Consultant at Accenture. He advises C-suite and global leadership teams of FTSE 100 and S&P 500 on their digital strategy. He has also developed extensive experience as a programme director where he has led multiple complex digital transformation programmes across various sectors. In addition to his consulting role, he is the fintech lead for Accenture Ventures. (corporate VC arm)
Prior to Accenture, Johannes worked at Infosys as a Senior Consultant in CIO Advisory and at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as an Analyst within the Capital Markets team. Johannes started his career in sales & trading at a bulge bracket bank and a fintech. He holds an MSc in Economic History from LSE (‘17).

Constanze Salzmann, Director Digital Strategy at OMMAX

Constanze is leading digital due diligence projects and customer projects with a focus on digital strategy development for national and international clients, e.g. KKR, EQT, Afinum Management, and Gilde Buy Out Partners. Prior to OMMAX, she worked for strategy consultants EY-Parthenon and held previous roles in financial advisory. Constanze holds an MSc and BSc in Business Administration and Engineering from Technical University Munich with a specialism in Finance and Accounting. 

The panel will be chaired by Nedelin Velikov from the LSE Digital Skills Lab.

Skills seminar: digital health- a people's lives game changer with Novo Nordisk
Wednesday 12 October (13:00 - 14:30)

The seminar starts with a short introduction to digital health and its relevance for the future of healthcare, understood in wide terms: public, private, and as an industry. Recommended readings will be sent beforehand and understanding of some basic concepts for patient care journey is advisable for an easy facilitation during the workshop.

After the provided context, the business case will be presented: challenge is to propose digital solutions from the patients’, and healthcare practitioners’ (doctors, nurses, etc.) perspective. The case deals with the treatment of a chronic disease. 6 groups in total will spar their potential solutions; from both perspectives and present a pitch of 5 minutes with the focus being on the logic behind their proposal, expected results, and plausible pitfalls. At least 2 groups will have to work on any of the 3 targeted stages of the patient journey: screening symptoms, early care initiation, and adherence to an effective treatment.

The presentations will be followed by a debrief and feedback from the organisers, with an open session to discuss learnings. The speakers will also highlight the skills relevant for the healthcare industry and the approach towards healthcare recruitment.

Skills seminar: robotics & intelligent automation at Deloitte for non-tech careers (online)
Thursday 13 October (18:00 - 19:30)

This skills seminar is for people who are considering/ interested in a career in technology and/or Robotics. The Deloitte R&IA (Robotic & Intelligent Automation) team build robotic solutions for their clients so that humans can focus on other more complicated tasks. They will give an overview of what robotic process automation actually is and its key benefits, and discuss their approach in how hey deliver tech solutions to their clients which is an approach that is taken up industry wide in multiple countries for various tech sectors. 

The team will give examples of some of their use cases and how they delivered solutions to world renowned clients. 

Finally, at the end of the event for those who wish to stay they will discuss the roles we have available from September 2023 both technical and non-technical and how you can apply. There will be time for any questions and an individual from the team will share their contact details if you have any questions following the event.

Skills seminar: digital business models and value creation with Ommax
Wednesday 26 October (15:00 - 16:30)

OMMAX is a leading digital strategy consultancy - in this skills seminar, you'll have the chance to learn about digital business models, digital due diligence, and value creation through an interactive session with their team which will include LSE alumni. 

Get hands-on knowledge and experience and find out what a career in digital strategy consulting really looks like.

For further information contact careers.employers@lse.ac.uk.

Industry Talks: Spatial Data Science
Organised by Dr. Elisabetta Pietrostefani

The spatial data science community is exponentially growing every year! Countless businesses and organisations need to ask important location-based questions to adapt to the new era we are living in.

These industry talks represented an opportunity for students to meet experts from the GIS and Spatial Data Science community working in both businesses and non-profit organisations. Students had the opportunity to hear about speakers’ work and ask questions about how they have analysed and modelled spatial data for companies, organisations, or other projects.

The schedule for 2022/23 is below:

Markela Zeneli and James Brennan - Climate X
7 December 2022, 17:30 - 18:30

Markela Zeneli is a Data Science MSc student from Goldsmiths College. At Climate X, she is a Data Science Junior Associate who is looking at the financial cost of climate change. This involves research into the environmental and social mechanisms that accelerate and differentiate human impacts.

James Brennan is the Remote Sensing and Data Science Lead at Climate X. He brings years of experience with applying remote sensing and data science to help solve key environmental challenges. During his PhD he worked with the European Space Agency on developing key climate data sets used to predict future carbon emissions.

Climate X is a global climate risk data and analytics provider. They help firms analyse the impact of extreme weather events linked to climate change. They deliver location-specific risk ratings, EPC ratings for transition risk and climate-adjusted loss estimates between now and 2100 under multiple climate emission pathways.

Contact Dr Elisabetta Pietrostefani for details.

Julia Wagemann - Women+ in Geospatial
25 January 2023,  17:30 (Via Zoom)

Julia Wagemann is a data scientist, PhD candidate and community-builder who promotes the use of open Earth data to better tackle climate, environmental and societal challenges. Her work is in the intersection between data providers and users of Earth data, resulting in a strong ability to translate user needs into a compelling vision for user support, training services and business development. As an independent consultant, she has worked together with a range of leading companies and intergovernmental organisations to develop training on Earth data, programming and emerging technologies.

The Discover Data Programme for 2023 kicks off from 30 January 2023.

Events in this series will provide students with insights into data science careers through connecting them with experts and alums and offering the chance to take part in a range of events.

Data Science Careers Panel

31 January 2023, 18:30 - 20:00
Old Theatre, Old Building

This panel, co-organised by LSE Careers and the LSE Data Science Institute is designed to support you to develop your knowledge of career options in Data Science. It brings together LSE alumni from across a range of roles and organisations in data science to discuss their careers, the opportunities available, and the challenges they've met.

Each panel member will speak for a short time about aspects of their career and the day-to-day realities of working in this sector. You’ll then have the opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A.

This event is part of the Discover Data programme which features a diverse range of seminars, networking sessions and panels aimed at students who aspire to work in a data-related role.

Panellists include:

• Chinonye Dianne Pat-Ekeji, Data Scientist at Tripledot Studios
• Mark Perfect, Data Scientist and Senior Consultant at Deloitte
• Micha Panagiotidi, Data Scientist at Updraft
• Tabtim Duenger, Data Scientist at Greater London Authority
• Pauline Ting, Data Scientist at Amazon Web Services

The panel will be chaired by Antonio Cordella, Programme Director of the MSc Management of Information Systems and Digital Information.

This event will be particularly useful if you:

• are thinking of a career in data science
• are curious about the sort of work and responsibilities jobs in this area can entail
• would like to hear about the specific skills required in the sector.

Attending this event will enable you to:

• describe the key functions and the day-to-day work of the panellists in this broad career area
• evaluate some of the realities of careers in this sector
• state strategies to get started in similar lines of work, based on the alumni insights.

Sign up via CareerHub.

Data Science Careers Networking Event

31 January 2023, 20:00 - 21:00
Old Theatre, Old Building

Following the panel event a networking session will take place. This informal session is open to all students that attended the panel event. Students will have the chance to further explore some of the themes that arose in the Q&A over refreshments.

This is the perfect opportunity to ask questions about the day-to-day realities of working in this sector to those with first hand knowledge.

Essential skills for a career in data

2 February 2023, 13:30 - 14:30
Graham Wallas Room, Old Building

As part of the LSE Careers ‘Discover Data’ week, the DSI is holding an information session to signpost students to the skills they need to thrive in a data science career. 

This session will provide an overview of a range of different careers that are emerging in this sector that is becoming increasingly interesting to LSE students. As students prepare for the jobs market, this event will signpost the resources available to develop the skills required to pursue different careers in data science, such as the LSE Digital Skills Lab. 

Following a 30-minute presentation from DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit on the tools that need to be mastered within these different common career paths, such as GitHub, R, and Python, students will be able to ask questions on the topic. 

Sign up to attend this event here.

Decision makers, policymakers and activists often urge us to "Follow The Science". However, the science is highly contested, from the data to the models to the final decisions.

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) will host this discussion to lift the lid on science for decision support, so that we can be savvier with how we use science, rather than following it blindly.

Meet our speakers

Professor Diane Coyle
Bennett Professor of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge. 

Dr Stephanie Hare
Researcher, broadcaster and author focused on technology, politics and history. 

Dr Erica Thompson 
Senior Policy Fellow in Ethics of Modelling and Simulation at the LSE Data Science Institute, funded by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship.

Chair

Baroness Minouche Shafik
Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

Watch a recording of this event.

DSI Research Showcase - December 2022

To mark the end of Michaelmas Term, the DSI hosted a Research Showcase event to connect the data science community for a celebration of some of the outstanding projects taking place.

Following its official launch at the start of Michaelmas Term, the DSI looks forward to pushing on with the ongoing revolution of ‘social data science’ at LSE through spreading data science education across the School and supporting research and outreach. 

With this aim, this DSI Research Showcase highlighted some of LSE’s cutting-edge research taking place at the intersection of data and society, with a specific focus on multi-disciplinary collaboration. 

The speakers at this event were: Dr Erica Thompson, Dr Alison Powell, Dr Johanna Thoma, Dr Michael Blackwell, and Riccardo Ricciardi.

Hosted in partnership with Ekimetrics

How do we reinvent business models to balance the needs for commercial success while tackling climate change? Is it possible to use new technologies, such as AI, to reconcile business and sustainability goals while driving competitive advantage? Why is it so hard to make this change when the need for it is so obvious?

The LSE Data Science Institute (DSI) hosted an exclusive live event in collaboration with Ekimetrics as part of their EkiVision 2022 global launch to answer these questions and more. Open to all LSE students, this event featured interviews, roundtables and skills sessions to provide a comprehensive introduction to the key themes and future challenges. 

The event was introduced by DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit and Caroline Milliotte, Global Head of Sustainability at Ekimetrics. Following this a range of experts from industry and academia offered their thoughts before attendees were given the chance to engage with the concepts themselves in skills workshops. These sessions were designed to be accessible for all backgrounds.

Find out more here and here.

Three-week Mastercourse – Data-Driven Management & Digital Consulting with Celonis

This course explored what the management of tomorrow will look like in a world that is more digitised than ever. Celonis helps organisations track their internal processes based on digital footprints in IT systems. Celonis is the market leader for Executive Management Technology with customers like Unilever, Coca Cola and BMW. Celonis uses Process Mining technology as well as different Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning capabilities to reveal insights and to provide direct recommendations.

In this Mastercourse students discovered trends in Digital Transformation and Data Driven Management and how process-oriented data science can facilitate an analytical viewpoint within organisations. Furthermore they gained business user skills in Celonis software to understand how to use it in a management consulting context.

Content Overview

· Week 1: Kick-Off Workshop (live); Start of Online Training with Theory Introduction to Process Mining and Celonis Software Training

· Week 2: Online Learning: Celonis Software Training; Introduction to Business Case “Pizzeria Mamma Mia” (online)

· Week 3: Online Learning: Deadline for Business Case Pizzeria Mamma Mia (online), Process Mining and Prediction

European societies are confronted by multiple crises. The manifestations of crises such as social inequalities, climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, geo-political fragmentation or the continuing loss of nature may vary, but they are connected at the root: unsustainable development patterns.
 
This collaborative online event focused on the interlocking environmental crises of the Earth. Led by the Stockholm School of Economics and London School of Economics, this event presented participants with the opportunity to engage with environmental crises of wildfires and drought in Europe. 

Cutting edge data sets and techniques were shared with participants to provide them with the skills and knowledge to examine the situation through the lens of societal transitions.
 
Recognising the need for integrated solutions based on integrated diagnoses, participants selected from two tasks as they formed teams to produce outputs. These tasks were to either produce an App Concept Design or an Infographic which were then subject to the review of an expert judging panel.
 
The event brought together faculty, students, and other interested parties from CIVICA Research partner institutions and beyond to tackle these challenges that cross physical and disciplinary boundaries and require innovative solutions.

Find out more about this event here.

The DSI was represented by Vanessa Cheng-Matsuno and Dr Tom Paskhalis at the recent CIVICA Data Science Days conference, hosted by the European University Institute.

This event officially marked the launch of the LSE Data Science Institute.

Discover how the technical aspects of data science can be applied to social science.

The DSI is excited to meet and welcome new students to LSE. As part of this welcome, a full programme of events have been arranged to introduce you to DSI activities and themes.

Key dates

• How to study data science at LSE
  Wednesday 21 September 2022
  
  Academics from across LSE shared information on their courses, teaching and training workshops. This included unique opportunities for students in attendance.
• Data Science Research Lightning Talks
  Wednesday 21 September 2022
  
  We discover LSE's world leading data science projects as academics presented for five minutes on their current work in areas such as health, climate change and politics
• Guest Lecture: Dr Ceren Budak
  Tuesday 27 September 2022
  
  We were proud to welcome cutting-edge computational social scientist Dr Ceren Budak from the University of Michigan to share how she uses large scale data analysis techniques to study problems with social, political, and policy implications.

CIVICA Research - Conference
1-2  September 2022

The LSE Data Science Institute is proud to contribute to CIVICA – The European University of Social Sciences. This network hosted the CIVICA Research Conference on 1-2 September 2022.

Find details about the conference here

The Conference brought together faculty and researchers from CIVICA's eight leading European universities in the social sciences: Bocconi University, CEU, EUI, Hertie School, SNSPA, Sciences Po, SSE, and LSE. 

The Conference was organised around the four core themes of CIVICA:

• Societies in Transition, Crises of Earth
• Democracy in the 21st Century
• Europe Revisited
• Data-Driven Technologies for the Social Sciences. 

The conference was open to everyone interested. 

Some of the panels that took place:

• Sensing opinions and inequalities from digital public spaces 
• Academics at Risk 
• Social media analysis meets social sciences  
• Data analysis for social good

Accelerate your skills development this summer

This summer the LSE Careers Skills Accelerator programme expanded the skillset of students, built understanding and boosted confidence.

The LSE Data Science Institute collaborated with the LSE Digital Skills Lab to create a new module titled Data for Social Scientists within this programme.

This and the other four modules were run virtually with students offered lots of flexibility, so that it could fit around other plans this summer. Completion of these modules also gave students the chance to secure a place on a two-week team-based virtual project with a partner employer.

More about the LSE Careers Skills Accelerator 

A series of five engaging and practical virtual skills modules, based on real world simulations and industry scenarios, built skills in five key areas. These were designed specifically for LSE students:

• Practical Problem Solving
• Collaboration
• Cultural Intelligence
• Innovation
• Data for Social Scientists

What will the management of tomorrow look like in a world that is more digitised than ever?

Celonis helps organizations track their internal processes based on digital footprints in IT systems. With this Celonis has turned into the market leader for Executive Management Technology with customers like Unilever, Coca Cola or BMW. Celonis uses Process Mining technology as well as different AI and ML capabilities to reveal insights into what is happening in an organization and to provide direct recommendations.

In this Mastercourse students could learn about trends in Digital Transformation and Data Driven Management and how process-oriented data science can facilitate an analytical viewpoint within organizations. Furthermore students gained business user skills through accessing the Celonis software, discovering how to use it in a management and management consulting context.

The LSE Statistics Research Showcase took place on 14-15 June 2022.

This two-day in-person event, in the form of a series of short talks, gave an overview of the research activities of the Department's four research groups:

• Data Science
• Probability in Finance and Insurance
• Social Statistics
• Time Series and Statistical Learning

DSI Affiliates were involved in organising this event, as well as presenting their own research. DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit was also invited to lead a discussion of his relevant research.

DSI Squared 'Speed Dating' - Research Networking Event
14 June 2022

This bilateral LSE Data Science Institute / Imperial College London DSI research networking event was the first of our ‘DSI Squared’ series. 

What happened? 
This research networking event took the form of ‘speed-dating’ event where researchers from each DSI had a chance to meet each other with a time limit for each meeting, before shifting table in order to meet the next researcher. 

Participants considered their research interests in advance and sent details for a contact card summarising these. At the event, researchers were paired for 4-5 mins which allowed them to introduce themselves and their future research plans, before exchanging contact cards to follow up with later. 

Following the event, all researchers were invited to an informal drinks reception. 

When and where? 
14 June 2022, 15:00 - 17:00. 

Translation and Innovation Hub 
White City Campus, Imperial College London 
W12 0BZ  

What were the aims? 
This event connected researchers from the two DSIs as part of a collaboration between Imperial DSI and LSE DSI, facilitating greater and more regular cooperation under the 'DSI-squared' collaboration. 

This event aimed to discover connections that could lead to shared funding applications under the (separately) proposed seed funding scheme and bridge the gap between data science applied to STEM and to SHAPE subjects. 

Read more about the event here.

Democracy in the 21st Century - Online event
June 13 2022

This took place as part of the CIVICA Research - Hackathon series.

The first two decades of the 21st century saw a proliferation of democracy indices and vivid professional debates about the conceptualization, operationalization, validity, reliability and global applicability of these measures. The current wave of “democracy with adjectives” poses a particularly severe challenge to quantitative tools of measurement. Is it possible to describe illiberal, populist, semi-authoritarian regimes and to capture incremental changes and nuances in consolidated liberal democracies with the same indicators and terminology? Should we develop new indicators for specific regions, specific regime-types and specific historical eras, or should we capitalize on the comparability of the existing longitudinal datasets, perhaps coming up with specific variants? Shall we relabel past categories or shall we rather construct new composite indices, relying on the same empirical data?

These were the questions in the focus of the CIVICA Research Hackathon, organised by CIVICA institutional partners and hosted by the Central European University (CEU) as part of the CIVICA Research hackathon series, under the CIVICA theme Democracy in the 21st Century.

The event brought together researchers, students and interested individuals, based at CIVICA partner institutions and beyond, to engage with these pertinent questions. The first part featured a keynote speech and a panel discussion with relevant experts in the field of democracy measurement, before the opportunity was given to participants to present their proposals concerning how the existing indicators should be improved, combined or replaced.

Please find full details of the event here.

Debugging (In)equality in Data Science

This workshop investigated the emancipatory potential of data science and aimed to foster camaraderie and collaboration between Doctoral Students and Early Career Researchers involved with or interested in computational methods for social sciences.

The event showcased cutting-edge data science that explores, exposes and tackles (in)equality. A founding principle was to facilitate this type of research and to support the development of junior scholars. Research grants were be available for two projects which aligned with the workshop principle.

Developed in partnership with the LSE Data Science Institute and the Alan Turing Institute Post Doctoral Enrichment Award, the event brought together key elements from LSE and beyond with the shared goal of reaching graduates, post-doctoral students, and early career researchers. This workshop provided insights and connections that will assist participants on their journey to mobilise data science research for social good.

Activities included:

• Research Grants Competition
• Oral presentations and round table discussions
• A3 poster fair (500 words excluding figures and bibliography)

Want to find out more? Some reflections on the event can be found here. Università Bocconi also published an article to congratulate one of their students, who won a research grant.

Industry Talks: Spatial Data Science
Organised by Dr. Elisabetta Pietrostefani

The spatial data science community is exponentially growing every year! Countless businesses and organisations need to ask important location-based questions to adapt to the new era we are living in.

These industry talks represented an opportunity for students to meet experts from the GIS and Spatial Data Science community working in both businesses and non-profit organisations. Students had the opportunity to hear about speakers’ work and ask questions about how they have analysed and modelled spatial data for companies, organisations, or other projects.

Find details of the events Lent Term 2022 programme below:

Joanne Hayek - Designer and interactive mapping coder
16 February 2022, 15:00.

Focusing on sustainability and innovation, Joanne’s practice spans across scales and disciplines through a variety of projects that combine social entrepreneurship and academic research. In recent years, Joanne has ventured into the fields of digital design, programming and data science through community projects that explore real-time interactive mapping as a tool for sustainable co-planning. In 2020, in response to the Beirut blast, she co-designed and coded the digital platform Emerge Beirut offering users the possibility to share their actions in real-time to help coordinate the post-blast recovery efforts. In 2021, her work was exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale as part of the project Beirut Shifting Grounds, in which she presented a dynamic data visualization and mapping of the grassroots deployments taking place in Beirut since October 2019. In November 2021, Joanne co-curated Shape Your City, an interactive installation exhibited as part of the Dubai Design Week in which she developed a web-app that allowed visitors to co-design the future of their city in real-time. Her research was also presented as part of the latest SMUS conference -Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability Conference- in 2021 and as guest lecturer at MIT’s school of architecture and planning. 

Sebastian Estivill & Karla Alfaro – Voluntary Intelligence Center (CIV)
28 February 2022, 17:00

The Voluntary Intelligence Center (CIV) is a non-profit Civil Association established in Mexico City after a major earthquake on September 19, 2017. The primary mission of the association is to develop technologies and strategies to help the civilian population during future disasters. In collaboration with the academical sector, the CIV has developed 3 major projects: VATRE, SIRAC, and Silvana:

1) VATRE focuses on building the chassis and electromechanical components of UAV's to be deployed during the response phase.
2) SIRAC uses image recognition algorithms along with robot vision and navigation to perform as "the brain" of the CIV's UAV assets.
3) Silvana concerns the creation of virtual 3D scenarios simulators to train human UAV pilots and strategists, as well as generate images for the convolutional neural networks trainings. 

Sebastian is the founder of the CIV is a Mechanical Electrical Engineer. During the 2017 earthquake, he coordinated the voluntary response efforts in collaboration with the Mexican Army and other federal institutions. Karla Alfaro is an Economist, Data, and Political Scientist who specializes in econometrics and data analysis. Her work on computer vision provided the CIV, in 2020, with its first trained convolutional neural network to detect collapsed buildings using aerial images.

Matt Forest - Head of Solutions Engineering at Carto
Miguel Álvarez García - Director of Data Science at Carto
15 March 2022, 16:00

Matt and Miguel work with a range of customers to study geospatial problems and develop spatial data science analyses to integrate into Carto’s core platform. They use a wide range of tools to solve problems and use creative approaches, both in terms of technology and spatial data science techniques, to solve complex geospatial problems. Carto is a Software as a Service cloud computing platform that provides GIS, web mapping, and spatial data science tools. The company is positioned as a Location Intelligence platform due to tools with an aptitude for data analysis and visualization that do not require previous GIS or development experience.

Andrew Zolli - Chief Impact Office at Planet
30 March 2022, 17:00 

Andrew Zolli oversees Sustainable Development and Global Impact initiatives of Planet, a breakthrough geospatial imaging organization that has deployed the largest constellation of Earth-observing satellites in history. Together, Planet’s satellites images the entire surface of the Earth every day, in high resolution. The resulting data has transformational value for addressing a host of global challenges, including measuring and monitoring natural capital, ensuring human rights, predicting food insecurity, assessing climate change, accelerating disaster response, and improving conservation, among others. Andrew is also a well-known writer and thinker on the use of technology for social and ecological impact, and the author of bestselling Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back, now published in many languages worldwide.

Jonathan America - TomTom
11 May 2022, 15:30

TomTom is a leading independent geolocation technology specialist, shaping mobility with highly accurate maps, navigation and real-time traffic information. Jonathan is the Senior Product Marketing Manager at TomTom. He has been working with location technology data and mobility products for more than 10 years, bringing always a "customer-first", "user-centric" approach throughout all product life cycle. 

This event will take place in person in MAR.2.06.

Google Talk: Tech Ethics and Poilcy

The Department of Methodology held a talk with Google Policy Advisors on Monday 25 April 2022.

This was a relaxed setting in which attendees heard from two individuals in a sector that may be of interest. The discussion focused on ethics and policy as well. Students were able to learn about life in tech policy and what it is like to work at Google.

Allison Mishkin is the Kids and Families Product Policy Lead at Google and former Thouron Fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute. Kate Sim is a Senior Child Safety Specialist in Google’s Product Policy team and also holds a PhD from the Oxford Internet Institute. Her interest areas include AI in public life, ethnographic methods and help-seeking behaviour.

The event took place in person and online.

Process Automation Bootcamp
Data-Driven Management in a hyperautomated world.

This Process Automation Bootcamp gave students and young professionals insights into how data science and automation can be used for operations and internal analytics. Participants gained skills in the Celonis Integromat software and learnt how to use it in the management and consulting context. A particular focus was placed on the automation of process flows and the potential which can be unlocked. 

What students learnt:

• The theory and application of process automation
• How to use the Celonis Integromat software at business user level
• How Applied Software Tools are used in the Automation Sphere (Action Flows & Integromat)
• How Process Automation can be applied to a business case 

Digital and Green Recovery in all regions? Opportunities and challenges for economic and territorial cohesion 

Tuesday 29 March 2022.

The 8th Cohesion Report presented a first picture of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic at the regional level in Europe. The report highlights that the green and digital transitions will be key drivers of EU growth, but argues that, without appropriate policy action, new economic, social and territorial disparities may appear. Discussants explored how we can move towards these green and digital transitions, and what opportunities and challenges they present. 

LSE Staff and Students could attend in person.

Speakers: Dr Lewis Dijkstra (European Commission), Prof Iain Begg (LSE), Danae Kyriakopoulou (Grantham Research Institute), Prof Francesca Medda (UCL) 

Chair: Prof Riccardo Crescenzi (LSE) 

LSE Careers Consultancy Project in conjunction with Racing Unleashed

LSE Careers run a range of interesting consulting projects, including a Consultancy Project in conjunction with Racing Unleashed.

Programme overview:

Students were given the opportunity to work on a 6-week real-world experience with clients, acting as 'student consultants'. They receive their client’s brief, undertake project research, and submit deliverables to the industry client and PhD mentor for feedback. Students were divided into teams of five, to ensure an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving.

A detailed summary presentation of the programme which provides more information can be found here.

Programme requirements:

• Student teams collaborated completely online to complete the project. Offline collaboration of student teams is subject to individual discretion.
• Students were required to commit to 25 hours in total over the 6-week experience, and submit a final presentation and data dashboard to the client. 

The application deadline has now passed. 

If you have any questions, please contact careers.internships@lse.ac.uk.

How is data used in sport and what can AI do? How do teams, media and betting firms use data to reconstruct performance?

AI in Sport: An Overview
Patrick Lucey PhD (Chief Scientist, Stats Perform)

24 March 2022, 17:30 - 18:30.

Miss this event? Watch a recording here.

To make the best decisions, tell the best stories or make the best predictions in sport, teams, media and betting firms are looking to use more granular data to better reconstruct player and team performance.

For the most part, these granular data sources have taken the shape of tracking data which capture the location of every player/ball at a high frame-rate. However, to both capture and utilise tracking data we need to: a) use computer vision to capture tracking data from video (both in-venue and from broadcast), and b) use machine-learning techniques to transform the tracking data into an “useable” form.

Over the past decade, Stats Perform has been at the heart of this revolution of both creating granular data but also utilising it across different applications.

In this talk, Patrick Lucey, PhD (Chief Scientist, Stats Perform) covered these aspects by discussing:

• The brief history of sports data and what AI can do (and cannot do)
• Creating tracking data and deriving semantics and quality metrics from it
• Utilising tracking data via interactive interfaces to answer questions on strategy, search and simulation
• Prediction applications - i.e. player recruitment and match/season forecasting

Patrick used examples from Stats Perform's work over the last decade in soccer, basketball and tennis. At the conclusion of the talk, Patrick highlights some of the “Grand AI Challenges” that Stats Perform is focusing on.

Speaker’s Biography:

Since October 2015, Patrick Lucey has been at Stats Perform and currently serves as Chief Scientist. His goal is to maximise the value of the 40+ years worth of sports data that Stats Perform has. Previously, Patrick was at Disney Research for 5 years, where he conducted research into automatic sports broadcasting using large amounts of spatiotemporal tracking data. Previous to that, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University/Department of Psychology at University of Pittsburgh conducting research on automatic facial expression recognition. Patrick received his BEng(EE) from USQ and PhD from QUT, Australia in 2003 and 2008 respectively. He has had papers in the final of the research track at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference 8 of the last 9 years – winning in 2016, and runner-up in 2017 and 2018. Additionally, he has won best paper awards at INTERSPEECH (2007) and WACV (2014) international conferences. His main research interests are in artificial intelligence and interactive machine learning in sporting domains.

Find more information about Patrick here.

Miss this event? Watch a recording here.

Hosted by the Department of Media and Communications and International Inequalities Institute, this event hosted leading experts to discuss Ellen Helsper's latest book, The Digital Disconnect which explores the relationship between digital and social inequalities, and the lived consequences of digitisation.

With the increased digitisation of society comes an increased concern about who is left behind. This event took place on Monday 7 March.

This event formed part of LSE’s Shaping the Post-COVID World initiative, a series imagining what the world could look like after the crisis, and how we get there.

Data Science Weekend 2022

The LSESU Data Science Society will hosted its annual datathon on the weekend of 26 - 27 February 2022. This event provided the opportunity to attend workshops, meet industry partners and solve challenges posed by Huawei, FNA, and TrueCue.

This event was co-hosted and sponsored by the LSE Data Science Institute.

Prizes for the top participants included opportunities to be fast-tracked for summer internships with our sponsors, and cash prizes worth £2500 to be won.

This event was held both in-person (for LSE students only) and virtually, so participants could join from wherever they are in the world. 

More information is available here.

Data and Tech programme 2022

LSE Careers hosted a range of events in Lent Term to aid students with an interest in pursuing careers in data science and related fields.

Panel events

Careers in tech for social impact
14 February 2022
Chaired by the LSE Digital Skills Lab
Panellists from Sparta Global, Ebury, Softwire, Computer Aid International.

Careers in Data Science
17 February 2022
Chaired by the LSE Data Science Institute
Panellists from Mastercard, Smart Odds, Google, Home Depot Data Science.

Employer skills seminars

FDM - stepping into a career in tech
16 February 2022

Roche - how technology is shaping the healthcare sector
16 February 2022

Meet our alumni

Meet our alum: tech and data
15 February 2022
With alumni from Twitter and Capital One

Skills seminar: Introduction to SQL coding workshop

This session explored SQL, which is fast becoming a fundamental skill when working in Data Science. As such a good working knowledge of the language is often considered essential when applying to many roles.

In this session, attendees got a taste of programming in SQL - essentially Excel for Big Data - from Ties Boukema, a Google analyst.

Ties works as a financial analyst, and also contributes to Google's climate science team. He's also the EMEA Data Science facilitator, and co-founder of Cognitas Bootcamps.

This event explored the following:

• understand the basics of SQL and begin your learning plan
• test out your newly acquired skills on some basic data tasks
• gain an insight into the various applications that SQL has
• learn more about career opportunities in Data Science
• learn from an Senior Financial Analyst at one for the world’s leading big tech firms.

This event was particularly useful if you:

• are curious about coding or would like to understand the basics of SQL
• are considering a career path outside of consulting & banking
• are interested in finding out about the wide variety of applications SQL has.

This event is part of the Careers in Data and Tech programme which features a diverse range of seminars, networking sessions and panels aimed at students who aspire to work in a data and tech role.

In the first of the Law, Technology and Society Seminars, Professor Roger Brownsword of King's College London discussed his work on AI Governance.

The LSE Law, Technology and Society group conducts world-leading research into the regulation of technology and its normative implications, including the legal, regulatory, policy and social implications of emerging technologies such as AI and ICT, biomedical and biotechnologies, distributed systems (including blockchain), FinTech, RegTech and LawTech.

Miss this event? A podcast is available here.

Automation Era - How will technology reshape business and how does it change how people work today?

A conversation with Professor Leslie Willcocks & Angela-Sophia Gebert (Celonis)

27 January 2022, 15:00 - 16:30 (GMT)

Across industries and sectors, machines are increasingly augmenting and replacing human labour. Will machine learning technologies result in mass job losses, a dramatic skill shift in the labour market, or enable people to engage in more fulfilling and creative work?

In this event Professor Leslie Willcocks (LSE) and Angela Sophia Gebert (Celonis) will explore questions such as how hyper automation has taken place, how automation is used in the business world and how it can inject new life into global economies

The event will be split into three sections. In the first section Leslie will review the evidence and report on his research before Angela uses the Celonis Integromat Software, an advanced online automation platform, to provide a hands-on use case and practical application. Following this attendees will be welcome to participate in a discussion session.

LSE students that have an interest in AI and data science will be interested in attending this event, particularly those considering a career in the field. Our speakers will share how future career trajectories will be transformed by AI-driven augmentation and automation, as well as sharing insights on the skills that are important for students to develop in order to work with and benefit from data science and machine learning tools.

Miss this event? A recording is available here.

CIVICA Research: Collaborative Hackathon on Data-Driven Technologies for Social Sciences.

This CIVICA Network hackathon took place on Thursday 16 December 2021, 14:00 - 17:00 CET.

How do you think political and social features of countries relate to cumulative COVID-19 deaths? Why does the impact of COVID-19 vary so much, both across and within countries?

This event was the first of our research collaboration events planned in the coming months, where participants will share their expertise and skills to solve a specific but pressing issue of our time: the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic across and within different countries. Organised and hosted by the LSE Data Science Institute as part of the CIVICA Research consortium, the event focused on the CIVICA-partner EUI team’s collaborative statistical modelling project, the COVID-19 Model Challenges.

The list of participants at this hackathon included Ken Benoit (London School of Economics), Miriam Golden (European University Institute), Alex Scacco (WZB - Berlin Social Science Center) and Rens Chazottes (European University Institute). Dr Miqdad Asaria (London School of Economics) was invited to address participants on some of the challenges of COVID modelling, with a particular focus on social aspects.

Professor Ken Benoit reflects on the event here.

Recordings of the speakers can be found here.

In line with the LSESU Data Science Society objective to provide students with more opportunities to work on data science, interested students are recruited at the beginning of each term to partake in projects. The 2021/22 Michaelmas Term programme of projects was created in academic year 2020/2021 as part of the society's rebranding from the LSESU Machine Learning Society to the LSESU Data Science Society.

The opportunity was open to students regardless of their course or technical background, with successful applicants grouped to work on pre-defined data science problems. In Michaelmas Term twenty six participants worked on six different projects, with each group under the direction of a project lead. 

The groups worked on projects in areas ranging from trade agreements, to fake news detection, to securities pricing. A full list of the project briefs can be found here. Examples of past projects done by society members can be found here.

The aim of this structured environment is for each group to partake in a flagship event at which projects are presented to an expert judging panel. The judging panel featured experts such as DSI Director Professor Ken Benoit and as teams were already grouped based on skill levels, judging was holistic. The top three teams won prizes worth £300, £200 or £100 pounds respectively.

This event was recorded and those interested in watching the presentations can express their interest via email.

The Global Disruptors Society was honoured to host Scott McNealy, founder of Curriki and former Chairman/CEO of Sun Microsystems for a virtual fireside chat.

At age 27, Scott McNealy co-founded Sun Microsystems alongside fellow Stanford graduates Vinod Khosla and Andy Bechtolsheim. Under Scott's leadership as CEO, Sun Microsystems grew from a campus startup to one of the most influential tech companies of its time, reaching a peak valuation of $200 Billion prior to the dotcom bubble. During this period, Sun Microsystems created Java and contributed to the evolution of many other technologies, including Unix and virtualized computing.

Since departing Sun Microsystems having been CEO for the past 22 years, Scott went on to found social media intelligence company Wayin (since acquired by Cheetah Digital) and Curriki, a platform that democratizes education and provides open e-learning solutions to millions of users.

Building Data Science Collaborations between the UK and Brazil

This workshop was hosted by the LSE Data Science Institute in collaboration with the University of Exeter College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences.

The aim of the workshop was to connect researchers based in the UK and Brazil who had not collaborated before. Any researchers based in academic institutions in the UK or Brazil with an interest in establishing data science research collaborations were welcome and over 50 researchers were successful in securing a place. These researchers shared innovative ideas for potential projects.

Researchers were grouped according to their topics of interest and facilitators conducted structured brainstorming sessions aimed at proposing small research projects. Topics of discussion were loosely based on DSI research themes.

Find out more about the workshop here. Follow up queries should be sent to Dr Jonathan Cardoso-Silva and Dr Chico Camargo.

The event facilitators would like to thank all those that attended for making this event such an enjoyable experience.

The LSESU Data Science Society organised this panel event to highlight the careers in data science that are available within regulation and the public sector. Guest speakers explored the applications of data science in these sectors and shared their professional experiences.

Speakers:
Chris Spaull - Data Scientist in the UK Ministry of Justice
L’ubos Pernis - Head of Suptech Development at FNA
Yennie Jun - AI and Data Science Fellow at UN Global Pulse
David Floyd - Data Science Lead at Permira and Ex-Data Scientist in UK Home Office

The LSESU Data Science Society organise events, projects and a community platform to introduce members to the applications of data science in different fields and industries, and have built a community for LSE students to learn, accelerate and support each other on their data science journeys.

This panel event was designed to provide students with insights on the exciting roles available within a data-related consulting career and the pathways into this. The panel shared their career journeys and answered questions from attendees.

Speakers:
Leonor Furtado - AI consultant at Accenture
Hasdeep Sethi - Data Science Consultant at Strat7
Darius Ansari - Principal Data Consultant at Newton Europe

This event was organised by the LSESU Data Science Society. For more information and if you have queries, please contact them via email.

The LSESU Data Science Society organise events, projects and a community platform to introduce members to the applications of data science in different fields and industries, and have built a community for LSE students to learn, accelerate and support each other on their data science journeys.

Curious about the future of finance and banking? 

This panel event was designed to provide students with information from a range of experienced speakers about how data skills can be applied to the financial world. The panel shared their career journeys, some insights about their role and their views on latest industry trends. 

Speakers:

Glen Moutrie
Data Scientist at the London Stock Exchange group.

Glen specialises in the applications of machine learning in finance and economics. Programming languages: Python, R and Java.

Jeremy Turiel
AI Researcher at JP Morgan and PhD candidate in Financial Computing at UCL.

Jeremy has experience in financial services, focusing on risk modelling with Network Analysis and Statistical Physicals Methods.

Ujwal Shreyas
Quantitative Researcher at BlackRock.

Ujwal builds systematic alpha strategies for hedge funds and long-only potfolios by leveraging machine learning alternative data and applying economic and financial theory. 

This event was organised by the LSESU Data Science Society. For more information and if you have queries, please contact them via email.

The LSESU Data Science Society organise events, projects and a community platform to introduce members to the applications of data science in different fields and industries, and have built a community for LSE students to learn, accelerate and support each other on their data science journeys.

A recording of this event is available for LSE students here.

This information session represented a chance to find out how to get involved with data science as a student at LSE.

Information on courses, workshops and digital training was provided by speakers from a range of Departments and there was a chance for questions to be asked "on everything from prerequisites to Python".

LSE's exciting data science courses were outlined in presentations from the Department of Methodology, Department of Mathematics and Department of Statistics that explained course content, reading lists and prerequisites. Further opportunities to access training in data science from the Digital Skills Lab were explained as well as information regarding brand new modules from the Data Science Institute.

The DSI was very pleased to contribute to the LSE Festival 2021 through Dr Erica Thompson taking part in the 'Festival Shorts' series.

Given their power to influence the world, Erica discusses how we can ensure that mathematical models are developed in a transparent and accountable way, providing information that is useful and relevant without being over-confident or subject to hidden bias.

A recording of Erica's Festival Short is now available.

This was the inaugural flagship event of the LSESU Data Science Society. As the cornerstone of data science activity at LSE, the DSI part-sponsored this event.

The event took the form of both conference and hackathon to showcase interesting career areas in data science, finance and consulting.

The LSESU Data Science Society organise events, projects and a community platform to introduce members to the applications of data science in different fields and industries, and have built a community for LSE students to learn, accelerate and support each other on their data science journeys.

The DSI was honoured to host this fireside chat with Jacky Wright (Chief Digital Officer and Corporate Vice President, Microsoft US) as our first online public event.

Jacky Wright is widely recognised as a transformational global leader, innovative technologist and recognized STEM advocate. Jacky leads teams to help businesses leverage technology to drive innovation, adopt sustainable and accessible business models, and digitally transform.

The event was chaired by Professor Ken Benoit, Director of the LSE Data Science Institute. Listen to the podcast recording of this event.