Krannert hosts inaugural Data Science for Business and Economics Conference

Monday, June 4, 2018

The inaugural Conference on Data Science for Business and Economics was held at Purdue University from Thursday, May 24 through Saturday, May 26, 2018.  This event was hosted by the Business Information and Analytics Center (BIAC) of Purdue’s Krannert School of Management.

The objective of this conference was to feature speakers from business, economics, statistics, computer science, engineering, and other areas as they explore the use of data science to solve real-world problems.

Among other things, the conference included four outstanding keynote speakers.  Ramayya Krishnam of Carnegie Mellon University began the keynote presentations by examining Analytics to Automation: Opportunities at the intersection of Data Science, Decision Science, and Social Science. University of Pennsylvania’s Rakesh Vohra explored Fairness and Machine Learning, while David Bell also of University of Pennsylvania discussed The BOSS Model: A Framework for Winning in the Digital Economy.  Cristopher Moore of Santa Fe Institute concluded the keynote presentations by discussing Black Cats in Dark Rooms: What Physics can Tell Us about Inference.  Professor Bell made his presentation electronically as he had missed his airline connection in Dubai on his way to Purdue and had to cancel the trip.

This inaugural conference was a huge success, as evident from the compliments received from the attendees.  For example, Kingshuk Sinha of University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management commented: “….my heartiest congratulations to you and your team of colleagues for envisioning, planning, organizing and executing one of the most intellectually invigorating, engaging and inclusive conferences on data science that I have attended in recent years. It was a conference that was not only informative but also inspiring in so many ways.”

Dean David Hummels and Prabuddha De, Chair of the BIAC Board of Directors, offer sincere thanks to Accenture for its sponsorship of the overall conference and Krannert’s Management Department for sponsoring the conference dinner on Friday.

For more details about the conference, please visit our website: 

Conference on Data Science for Business and Economics