South Hub features & editorials

Gear Up for StatFest 2018 with Testimonials from StatFest 2017 Student Attendees

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StatFest 2018 composite

StatFest 2018 Flyer

StatFest is a great opportunity for undergraduate students from historically underrepresented groups (African American, Hispanic, Native Americans) to network and consider careers and graduate studies in the statistical sciences.  StatFest 2018 will be taking place on Saturday, September 22nd at Amherst College. Be sure to save the date!

The South Big Data Innovation Hub sponsored five graduate students for a panel at the undergraduate conference “StatFest”, which is a one day conference aimed at encouraging undergraduate students from historically underrepresented groups (African American, Hispanic, Native Americans) to consider careers and graduate studies in the statistical and data sciences. These graduate students from various southern institutions were awarded travel fellowships through the South Hub SNAP-DS program, “Stimulating New Activities and Projects in Data Science”.   Continue reading →

#SDSC18: 2018 Southern Data Science Conference Recap

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Speakers and Board Members from the Southern Data Conference which featured over 300 attendees. Images Left to Right: South Hub Co-Executive Directors; Renata Rawlings-Goss and conference chair Khalifeh AlJadda Lead Data Scientist for CareerBuilder; Lea Shanley speaking on panel; Renata Rawlings-Goss and conference Hack-a-thon chair Beverly Wright, CAO  at Aspirent; SDSC Advisory Board

Acting as a member of the advisory committee, the South Big Data Regional Innovation Hub in conjunction with the Southern Data Science Conference welcomed data enthusiasts to Atlanta.  On April 13-14, the second Southern Data Science Conference was held at the beautiful Marriott hotel in downtown Atlanta. To no surprise, the sold-out conference included 350+ data science enthusiasts, and top speakers from top companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Uber,… etc. and top research institutions like Georgia-Tech, UGA, UNC,…etc.  From responsible AI to ‘fake news’ to emoticons to team management, the Southern Data Science Conference did not disappoint!  Continue reading →

BREAKING: DataUp – Keeping Data Science Broad Recipients Announced

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DataUp Logo

Last week, The South Big Data Innovation Hub announced the recipients of the 2018 DataUp: Keeping Data Science Broad Series. The recipients represent Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), and other minority-serving institutions (MSIs), community colleges, and primarily teaching-focused institutions.   Each of the recipients will receive a 2-day data science workshop on their respective campuses and travel funding for an in-person ‘train-the-trainers’ workshop in Atlanta, GA to prepare teams to teach regional data science workshops.  Continue reading →

The South Big Data Hub brings missing voices to the conversation on data science education

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Negotiating the Digital and Data Divide Workshop builds momentum for the series “Keeping Data Science Broad.”

Participants of the Negotiating the Digital and Data Divide Workshop, in front of the wall of challenges and visions used to collect ideas on the future of data science education.

This month, participants from universities across the nation, community colleges, tribal colleges, minority-serving institutions, nonprofits, and industry joined forces with the South Big Data Hub and Georgia Tech to confront the challenges of building data science capacity through traditional and alternative educational practices. Organized by Dr. Renata Rawlings-Goss, a co-executive director of the South Big Data Hub, the two-day workshop, sponsored by multiple directorates within the National Science Foundation, brought together a diverse mix of participants to navigate the complex issues of reforming data science education to prepare for the data-driven workforce of the future.

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Separating the wheat from the chaff in an age of bots and trolls

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bots and trolls2In the age of ubiquitous connectivity and social media, information is at our fingertips. Unfortunately, so is misinformation and often it is hard to tell one from the other.

A recent roundtable discussion sponsored by the South Big Data Hub examined the rapidly changing landscape for building online communities, sharing information, and creating what often appears to be a groundswell of support for particular points of view.  Continue reading →

PEPI Builds Bridges Between Industry and Researchers

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The South Big Data Hub’s Program to Empower Partnerships with Industry (PEPI) pairs early career faculty and researchers throughout the South with Industry Partners and support their travel to make collaboration possible. The program is co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), UnitedHealthCare Group and McKesson Corporation. Through PEPI, the South Hub provided funding to support data-intensive fellowships with industry for early career faculty, research scientists, and postdocs. Each award provided the recipient with up to $15,000 of travel and salary support to pay for their full-time effort for 2 – 5 weeks working at the company site.

The 2016 PEPI Fellows and companies were:  Continue reading →

A Vision For Smart and Connected Cities

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Author: Deepti Kumra, South Hub Graduate Assistant

During the second South Big Data Hub Smart Cities community call, Daniel Morgan, chief data scientist for the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), addressed what he sees as the DOT’s biggest data challenges. The DOT is actively encouraging developers to come up with applications to improve public safety, facilitate access to transportation, and help the department better understand traffic congestion.

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The biggest challenge the DOT faces is fatal crashes. In August 2016, the Census of Fatal Crashes revealed a loss of 35,072 lives on the road, a 7.2% increase compared to 2014. Hypothesized causes for this increase in fatal crashes are an improving economy leading to more travel, climate and weather changes, alcohol involvement, attitudes towards seat belt use, and distracted driving (for example drivers texting or talking on the phone). Continue reading →

South Big Data Hub DataStart fellow reflects on lessons learned

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By Jonathan Ortiz, DataStart Fellow, data.world, Austin, Texas

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Jonathan Ortiz trying his hand at the data.world slackline.

As the summer semester passes its halfway point, I take a moment to reflect on just what an amazing summer it has been and think ahead to what is in store for the second half. I am a Data Analytics and Big Data student at The University of Texas at Austin, and this summer I have had the exciting opportunity to work with data.world, an Austin data startup, through a DataStart fellowship managed by the South Big Data Hub with support from the Computing Community Consortium and the National Science Foundation.

data.world is a data platform that helps people work together to solve important problems faster. I believe, as the good folks at data.world believe, that the barriers that divide data and people are artifacts from a less-connected era. In a time when more and more open data is created every day, only a tiny fraction—less than 1%—of all the data that gets collected and stored is ever analyzed, according to an IDC report.   Continue reading →

Four STPF Alumni Lead the Big Data Charge

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Regional big data hubs aim to foster partnerships and strategies to tackle local and national challenges.

By Joy Metcalf (original posting at AAAS)

Late last year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) granted $5 million dollars to establish four Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs covering all 50 states with more than 250 universities, corporations, foundations, and cities committing support. The hubs’ role: To develop big data partnerships and strategies to address challenges the United States faces on a regional and national level.

Four of the five Hub leads enjoy the DC outdoors (From left to right: Lee, Shanley, Baston, Rawlings-Goss). | RC Barcus

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The Recap: South Big Data Hub Education and Workforce Working Group Call

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Members discuss the importance of the 21st century workforce using data science across industry, academia and government

Members of the South Big Data Hub Education (SBDH) Education and Workforce Working Group began a conversation this week around identification of core learning needs for data science, including the retention of students in the STEM pipeline and the recruitment of new and diverse students to the field of data science.

Leveraging the SBDH community, 28 members from nine Southeastern states shared their knowledge of current data science training opportunities in an open forum and delved into ideas for connecting and expanding upon those initiatives.   Continue reading →