Data management – Successful cooperation with Thai university to be expanded

The University of Bremen has added a promising component to its long-standing cooperation with Mahidol University in Thailand, one of the country's best and oldest universities. At the beginning of January, the Data Science Center (DSC) at Uni Bremen and the Mahidol University AI Center signed a memorandum of understanding. The main goal: joint training and research in the field of data science as well as joint use of resources. “Around the world, the way we deal with data is undergoing culture change, so international cooperation like this is extremely beneficial," says Dr Lena Steinmann, coordinator of the DSC.

Housed at Faculty 3 – Mathematics and Computer Science, the DSC is a still-young institute that works with all of the University of Bremen’s faculties and research projects. With advice on data handling, computing capacities and funding, the DSC supports researchers in the management and analysis of even very large amounts of data. Through this process, optimal conditions are created to enable the use of advanced artificial intelligence methods in every discipline.

The new agreement with Mahidol University is the DSC’s first international cooperation. The Thai university’s AI Center was only recently established, with enormous financial as well as human resources. "The first thing we want to do now is to open up our respective trainings for a virtual exchange between the two universities," says DSC coordinator Lena Steinmann. "From summer onwards, we want to start developing joint training courses." In the future, scientists from Thailand and Bremen will conduct joint research on the use of big data through the application of artificial intelligence.

This is a cooperation with great prospects for the future, as was made clear at the signing of the memorandum. Among those present were Professor Rolf Drechsler, Dean of Faculty 3 and spokesperson for the DSC, as well as Dr Mandy Boehnke, Vice Rector for International Affairs, Academic Qualification and Diversity, and Professor Michal Kucera, Vice Rector for Research and Transfer.