BAU Istanbul Big Data Education and Research Center Opens

The BAU Istanbul Big Data Education and Research Center, established to educate individuals who learn, use and develop the rapid advances in technology and computer science together with their technical infrastructure in the information age we live in, and an important step on the road to an information society, was opened with the support of the Istanbul Development Agency at a ceremony held at Bahçeşehir University South Campus.

The ceremony, at which the opening speech was given by Bahçeşehir University President Prof. Dr. Şenay Yalçın, was attended by Assist. Prof. Dr. Yücel Batu Salman, Director of the Bahçeşehir University Istanbul Big Data Education and Research Center; Prof. Dr. Nafiz Arıca, Dean of the Bahçeşehir University Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences; Bahçeşehir University Vice Presidents; academics; and students.

"WE WANT TO LEAD IN INNOVATIVE AND ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTIVITIES"

Stating that a digital transformation is taking place in the world and that Türkiye must keep pace with this transformation in its goals for the future, Bahçeşehir University President Prof. Dr. Şenay Yalçın said: "A great change is taking place in the world. Türkiye is part of this change. Türkiye needs to keep up with this change and manage it.

There is an incredible abundance of data in the world. The concept we call Big Data comes into play exactly at this point. Big Data contains an enormous amount of information. Therefore, using this information well will help us make the right decisions for the future. As Bahçeşehir University, we closely follow innovations around the world.

Indeed, in line with innovative and entrepreneurial activities, we want to be a leader in education at the university level. As a university, we have launched graduate programs in cyber security and Big Data. In addition, to create a field of application, we are opening the Big Data Education and Research Center at our university with the support of our Ministry of Development and the Istanbul Development Agency."

Also noting that this center can provide very important opportunities, especially for those studying Big Data at Bahçeşehir University and those working in this field at institutions, President Prof. Dr. Şenay Yalçın said: "Within the existing potential of our university, we want to progress faster in this area both with our domestic resources and with the other educational institutions under the BAU Global umbrella. As a step further, we are continuing our undergraduate work in data analytics.

At this point, we have launched Industry 4.0 talks and joint think-tank meetings together with the Turkish Exporters Assembly and Turkishtime. So far we have held five meetings in this area. The question that came up in this work was what the methods for processing Big Data would be. With this center, a great contribution will be made both to our country and to those working in this field."

"LARGE-SCALE DATA IS BEING COLLECTED WITH BIG DATA"

Commenting on how, since the internet entered our lives, people have become an important source of data, especially photos and videos on social media, Assist. Prof. Dr. Yücel Batu Salman, Director of the Bahçeşehir University Istanbul Big Data Education and Research Center, said: " Big Data is an important field of research today. Indeed, with it, a great deal of large-scale data has begun to be collected.

Since the internet entered our lives, people have also become a source of data. A huge amount of data transfer is seen particularly through social media. However, the data must be made meaningful and analyzed. At our university, the Big Data Analytics and Management master's program at the Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences continues its work with one hundred students. Therefore, with courses taught especially by professionals from the industry and by academics, we are striving to train a workforce that can combine theory with practice."

"WE AIM TO DEVELOP UNIVERSITY-INDUSTRY COLLABORATION"

Also noting that there is a need for a workforce that can use technology and that they want to build collaboration between universities and industry, Assist. Prof. Dr. Salman said: "One of the main reasons for Bahçeşehir University leading in big data is to be able to train this human resource. Topics such as big data, cyber security and Industry 4.0 stand out as very new topics ready for application.

In addition, we needed a center where we could do research, develop applications, collaborate with companies and run projects. In this context, our new center will begin to be used both as an education center where students in particular can practice and as a research center where we can carry out projects.

We aim for it to be a center where new products and technologies can be developed with Big Data and different complex questions can be answered."