ZHIYUAN-What role should universities play in meeting the challenges from big data research and its application, so that a path for common development of data science and information industry can be found?

Twenty-five experts and entrepreneurs from home and abroad were invited to share their perspectives on this subject at a two-day-long symposium held from Jan 18 to 19 at Zhiyuan’s lecture hall with campus scholars and students.

Resounding with heated discussion, the hall was fully packed from the beginning of the first speech until the end of next afternoon. Even extra seats are provided in the aisles and doorway for participants from not only SJTU but also business and industry who are interested in the theme.

“It was a great success that has enabled participants to understand the significant contribution of data science and data industry to the development of society,” President Zhang Jie said at the closing dinner, “We shall draw on American universities’ merits of time-honored tradition of innovation. The age of data is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss. We should earn in this age our global competitiveness of innovative research.”

Deputy director Chen Mingbo from Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission and former vice president Zhang Wenjun also attended the dinner.