u-planner’s Head of Data Science, Sebastián Flores, was part of the 2nd Chilean National Mathematical Engineering Summit (ENIM) held on November 9- 11 and the student chapter of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) at the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María.
At the event, Flores showed how a big data analysis could help improve higher education management.
“It is very positive that mathematical engineers assist to these types of congresses, as they can interact with their peers and network with universities, getting to know the challenges in the industry,” he says.
u-planner’s presence at the summit is part of a series of conferences where they have participated in 2016 such as the BETT Latin America Leadership Summit & Expo in Mexico City, and the 29th Chilean Congress of Education in Engineering.
Sebastian Torres, president of the student section for SIAM-Chile and a Civil Engineer in mathematics student at the University, values u-planner supporting these events.
“We have felt their support months in advance, as they sponsored these events and participated in the industrial talks, which has been very helpful to undertake the ENIM 2016 event successfully”, he said.
Sebastián Flores explained that higher education institutions have a variety of data in large quantities, which requires a process of extraction and transformation for it to be clean and consistent. Applying data science in education, even though it has its challenges, has the potential to optimize the efficiency of internal data and higher education resources, to improve students educational experience
Applications include data such as:
Academic, such as major, curricula and courses.
Infrastructure, such as campus, buildings, schedules and room use.
Teaching, such as contracts, course history and availability.
Student, such as course records and academic status.
The event is a series of conferences by local and international speakers, who discussed applied mathematics in academia and the industry, says the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María (UTFSM).
The institution is one of the leading universities in this discipline in the Latin American region, and is ranked 13 in Latin America University Rankings by Times Higher Education (THE),
Sebastián Torres explains that “the primary goal of ENIM is to be a place where future mathematical engineers in Chile can meet, share experiences and discuss ideas, so they can become better professionals.”
On the other hand, the u-planner expert in Data Science says that for the company “the impact of engineers with pure and applied mathematics is huge regarding improving algorithms and models, and we are always trying to find new professionals to create the best products in the market.”
Torres adds that “trade talks are a high impact activity as, for many participants, it is the first time they can see in a clear way how engineer and applied mathematics can add value to a company’s productive process.”