FAQ’s

• What is data science?
Data has always been about human being directly or indirectly. Data has grown dramatically in both size and importance. Accordingly, there was an emergent need to absorb the huge amount of data. Data science approach was the solution for the rapidly changing world and its massive data in its capacity as the main focus of most sciences and studies right now. Data science depends on a lot of things like artificial intelligence, programming, statistics, business understanding, effective presentations skills and much more and it has become the standard solving problem framework.

• What is data science initiative?
Generally speaking, data science initiative seeks to enhance opportunities for individuals/communities to tap into the enormous potential of data science with a focus on fundamental challenges related to awareness, skills, data, utilization, methods and coordination mechanisms.

• Why do we need data science initiative in Palestine?

The data science initiative aims to develop a supportive culture of puts data at the center of attention at different sectors. The idea is to make everyone use relevant data that is relevant to his/her business domain to improve business products and services. The wider intention is to turn available data into products!

Data science initiative is needed to learn how to use these data-analytics tools to assess, identify issues, support the choice of interventions, forecast the future, monitor progress and evaluate the results and impacts of policies and programs. It will provide a basis for good decision-making, support governments in identifying the best courses of action in addressing problems.

• How data science touches on human lives?
Data sciences targets several sectors that cover all areas of human activity namely (health, economic, education, environment, arts, governance, infrastructure, justice, science, agriculture, security, defense ,,,etc) where data science approach identify the key problems in each of these sectors and come up with solutions that will be good for all of them.

• What are the projects under the initiative in Palestine?

  1. Data science festival
  2. Think Data Science Program
  3. Data Science for Schools: Schools without Walls
  4. Data Science for Executives
  5. Data Science Society of Palestine

• Who are the key players of the data science initiative in Palestine?
The initiative is open for all sectors. Initially, PCBS and AAUP have engaged together to develop this initiative. Others are very much welcome to join this initiative and be an active player.

• Who are the targets of the initiative?
Anyone and everyone interested in data science.

• What is the difference between data science and official statistics?
Official statistics are statistics produced and published by a governmental agency or other public bodies. In contrast, Data science is a scientific and truth-seeking discipline that uses data to extract knowledge and insights and it can be practiced by any individual, community or expert who is interested in exploring facts and knowledge that stand behind data i.e. it doesn’t need to be under the umbrella of official agency.

• Mention five real life examples where data science can intervene or has intervened to improve human welfare?
Applications of data science has been there ages ago in different forms and types. Since the technological revolution many applications and software has been developed to monitor the progress and impact of a certain issue on human welfare through data analysis and predication of the future.

  1. Transportation and Infrastructure: sensors will monitor the traffic jam and accidents and other applications were developed such as (Careem, Uber, EasyWay,,,etc) to provide multiple transportation options for individuals..
  2. Energy consumption: In order to effectively consume energy and decrease wastage, energy waste monitoring system which could reduce the area’s energy usage by collect and analyze hundreds of data sets collected from various downtown buildings’ management systems through the sensors.
  3. Healthcare: Data science is being used for tumor detection, drug discovery, medical image analysis, virtual medical bots, etc.
  4. Agriculture: having sensors in the fields will offer smarter agriculture outcomes by enabling monitoring of crop, fertilizer, pest, and soil conditions.
  5. Education: Nowadays, easy access to internet can contribute to enhancing accessibility to education and data analytics can be applied to help reduce the costs of education.

• Where the world is moving towards in data science?
Data Matters Festival on October 20th, 2019 will answer this question.

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