Welcome to the website of the Workshop on Data Science in Africa, to be held at Dedan Kimathi University of Technology in Nyeri, Kenya. Key dates: Workshop talks: 18th-19th June, 2015 The last few years have witnessed an explosion in the quantity and variety of data available in Africa, produced either as a by-product of digital services, from sensors or measuring devices, satellites and from many other sources. A number of practical fields have been transformed by the ability to
collect large volumes of data: for example, bioinformatics with the
development of high throughput sequencing technology capable of
measuring gene expression in cells, or agriculture with the widespread availability of high quality remote sensing data. For other data sources
– such as mobile phone usage records from telecoms operators, which can be used to measure population movement and economic activity
–
we are just beginning to understand the practical possibilities. Data
science seeks to exploit advances in machine learning and statistics to
make sense of the growing amounts of data available from various
sources. In Africa, a number of problems in areas such as healthcare,
agriculture, disaster response and wildlife conservation would benefit greatly if domain
experts were exposed to data science techniques. These skills would
allow practitioners to extract useful information from these abundant sources of raw data. Organisers
RegistrationTo participate in the workshop as a speaker please submit a short abstract to the organisers by email at ciira.maina@dkut.ac.ke or jquinn@cit.ac.ug by 20th May, 2015. To participate in the data science lectures and practical sessions as a student, fill in this form by 20th May, 2015. Registration is free for all participants. AccommodationThere are a number of hotels in Nyeri Town available at reasonable rates. Public transport is available from Nyeri town to the workshop venue.
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