Eunice Santos, the Ron Hochsprung Endowed Chair and Professor of Computer Science, participated in a panel during Big Data Week, “A Global Festival of Data,” in September. Big Data Week gathered technical, business, and academic experts in Chicago and London to share their big data knowledge, best practices, and challenges.

Santos appeared on the panel “Applying Big Data and Analytics for Public Impact: Solutions, Opportunities & Challenges,” held at TechNexus. Other panelists included Brenna Berman, chief information officer, City of Chicago; Paul Seeman, managing director, Business & Legal Affairs, UI LABS; and Michael Krauss, president and co-founder, Market Strategy Group. The group discussed the need to consider technology, policy, and impact together when trying to develop solutions or create products using data science and data analytics.

Big Data Week was sponsored by big data cloud provider Bigstep. Chicago was chosen as one of the venues because of the city’s strong big-data culture created by universities, high-profile startups and larger enterprises. Chris Gladwin, Illinois Tech trustee and founder of Cleversafe and Ocient, was among the keynote speakers at the event.