Professor Joe Qin Sizhao

The big picture for big data

By : Michael Gibb

Data is deeply embedded in our lives, from AI to social media, the sharing economy, the Internet of Things, infrastructure, public health, creative media. The list is endless.

CityU’s contribution to maintaining the momentum of this unprecedented digital revolution was to establish two years ago one of the first data science schools in the world dedicated to educating undergraduate and postgraduate students and providing general education on data literacy.

“Data is all around us and we intend to stay ahead of the curve in this exciting new area of study at CityU,” says Professor Joe Qin Sizhao, Dean of the School of Data Science (SDSC) and Chair Professor of Data Science. “The way people interact with each other and how the economy functions and businesses operate are changing rapidly because of developments taking place in data science.”

SDSC was set up to meet demand. While data science touches almost every academic discipline in higher education, a dedicated hub was required to nurture young people for the needs of the job market.

“There is a huge demand today for data scientists all over the world,” says Professor Qin. “This subject crosses into all areas of text, video and image analysis, involving maths and statistics, science and engineering. This means that jobs in areas as diverse as business analytics, financial technology, e-commerce, social media analysis, health informatics, engineering systems, and smart city technology require well trained data scientists.”

These elements form part of the two undergraduate degrees offered through SDSC: Bachelor of Science in Data Science (BSc DS) and Bachelor of Engineering in Data and Systems Engineering, plus the Master of Science in Data Science (MSDS) and PhD degrees.

“Big data companies are searching all the time for top talent since there is a relatively short supply of well trained and well qualified candidates, which is what makes our programmes and research at SDSC at CityU
so special,” says Professor Qin.

For example, data science is playing a crucial role fighting Covid-19. SDSC is using data from mainland China to build models to predict what will happen over the course of a set period of time in different regions, building causal models from daily confirmed cases to predict daily deaths and cured cases.

Data science tools are also used for finding people who have got lost, tackling crime and assessing traffic accidents, and of course they are highly important for social media, analysing consumption patterns and lifestyle choices for strategic advertising.

One major beneficiary of the postgraduate programme is Tang Kai-chen who took the MSDS. He will be pursuing a PhD degree at the University of Texas, Houston Medical Center in biomedical informatics next spring.

“I think the most exciting part of the programme is the excellent faculty members in SDSC and the chances of conducting research for real-world inter-principle problems. The data-driven approaches I’ve learned at CityU have inspired me for my further endeavours,” he says.

Timothy Leung Chung-hin, a Year 1 student of the BSc DS, appreciates that having a stand-alone school focusing on data science and its applications is a huge attraction for CityU.

“I like data science because it combines multi-disciplinary fields and computing to interpret data for decision making, which is why I chose it as my undergraduate major,” he says.

In addition, SDSC supports CityU’s new Strategic Plan by aligning its operations with key themes and research areas identified for the 2020–2025 period.

“We are particularly able to contribute to One Health, Digital Society, Smart City, Matter, and the Brain, which are all emphasised in the new Strategic Plan for CityU,” says Professor Qin.

“In fact, there is almost no area in higher education research and education that will not benefit from data science, which is great news for our students when they enter the job market.”