Course info

In today's interconnected world, the concept of smart societies has emerged as a transformative approach to address complex societal challenges. This course, Data Science for Societies, explores the foundations, methodologies, and applications of creating and sustaining smart societies.

The "Data Science for Societies" short summer course is designed to provide undergraduate students with a condensed introduction to applied data science and AI, focusing on the application of these methods to address critical societal issues spanning public health, urban planning, and computational social science. This course aims to provide students with a high-level overview of the key open problems in these fields as well as the current data-driven solutions to address them. Students will gain exposure to state-of-the-art methods from deep learning, network science, computer vision, and natural language processing, as well as acquire an understanding of how to use these methods to address complex practical issues across various aspects of society. 

Over the span of the 2-week interval, students will be introduced to key concepts and applications of AI, with a focus on smart cities, healthcare, and topics in the computational social sciences. The course will offer a comprehensive overview of the fundamentals, allowing students to develop a solid foundation in this exciting area of study. Topics covered include transportation systems, human mobility analysis, model complexity, explainability and interpretability, data privacy, drawing from the most up to date methodologies and challenging societal problems. While covering these application areas, the course will provide insights into how to choose appropriate methods to address such problems, covering state-of-the-art methods across deep learning, network science, computer vision, and natural language processing.

By incorporating methodological and applied elements, the course aims to provide a well-rounded understanding of the current state of applied AI research and its potential applications across various domains. Through this immersive 2-week course, students will gain a glimpse into the potential of AI and its impact on diverse fields, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to further explore the world of data science and AI for building smart, healthy, inclusive, and sustainable societies.