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Immersing Oneself in a Very Meaningful Vacation through
HKU IDS Summer Course IDSS 2301– Stay Proud as Our First Batch of Potential Data Scientists!

The 2-week programme IDSS 2301: Data Science for Beginners: Theory, Algorithms and Applications, organized by the HKU Musketeers Foundation Institute of Data Science and supported by the HKU Summer Institute, has marked its successful conclusion on July 20, 2023! It was the first-and-ever intensive undergraduate course offered by the HKU IDS and we were very excited to have welcomed over 110 young faces across the Greater Bay Area and the globe. Being a potentially new batch of data scientists showing keen interest in the theoretical aspects of machine learning and artificial intelligence, the students not only had much fun at the Opening Ceremony on July 10, 2023, where light-hearted ice-breaking activities and an introductory guest lecture by the Institute’s Director, Professor Yi Ma, were given, but also embarked on an amateur yet interdisciplinary learning journey of data science knowledge through the lectures by the research community at HKU IDS, including Dr Man Chung Yue (HKU IDS/ Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering), Dr Yue Xie (HKU IDS / Department of Mathematics), and Dr Sebastian Morel-Balbi (Post-doctoral Fellow).

According to the post-programme evaluation form, more than half of respondents “strongly agreed” that the course “had met their expectations” and would “highly recommend the course to other students”. Over 80% of the participants also agreed that the three instructors were “well-prepared for the classes”.

Students even commented to individual instructors as being “brilliant presenters” whose “way of imparting knowledge helps [him/her] comprehend well”. The lectures were also rated as “well-explained” and able to help the participants “understand lots of things after class”.

The fact that students were inspired to demonstrate critical thinking and understanding towards various aspects of data and machine learning was also reflected on the final day of the course, during which students celebrated for their graduation from the short course by giving a 10-minute group presentation in front of the instructors and their peers on July 20, 2023. The presentation themes covered a wide range of aspects relevant to daily applications of data science, including the following:

  1. Smart Cities
  2. Education
  3. Natural Science
  4. Business & Finance
  5. Legal & Public Policy
  6. Healthcare
  7. Environment & Energy


Students with outstanding performance enjoyed a moment of honour and applause during the Prize Presentation cum Closing Ceremony when the groups were awarded for the “Best Group Presentation Award” as well as the “Most Popular Vote” with the specially designed souvenirs from the Institute.

“The value of a college education is not the learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think. —Albert Einstein”

Packed as it might seem, the IDSS 2301 summer programme aimed to render undergraduate students a foundational training of how machine learning comes into play, and what artificial intelligence is supposed to be complementing human intelligence. We hope the summer programme will be a first step for students to develop interest in this heated area of research, and sooner or later, they could possibly be a new member of the HKU IDS family.