This year, the University of Navarra will launch its own diploma in Big Data. The Statistics Unit of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra will coordinate it in collaboration with the School of Economics and the participation of other centers, such as the School of Sciences and the School of Engineers-TECNUN.

"More and more companies and organizations require professionals with knowledge of Big Data. This program comes as a response to this demand, offering technical and specific content that is also very practical," or so explains Professor Jesús López Fidalgo, Director of the Statistics Unit at ICS and Director of the program.

It will run from January through June 2018, and is aimed at professionals, university graduates and students in the last year of their degree. It is designed for a wide audience and, therefore, does not require advanced programming or statistical knowledge to enroll. Nevertheless, a predisposition for working with computers, the use of algorithms and basic data analysis are all recommended.

Students will learn to work with tools such as Python, R, SQL, Java or Tableau, among others. "They will receive very technical training in tools that are useful both for data collection and for analysis, interpretation and visualization," López Fidalgo explained.

Epidemics, natural disasters and energy savings

With respect to the teaching staff, he indicates that, "our professors comes from diverse companies and prestigious institutions and have ample experience with these tools. They will show students how to use them in real-life situations and apply them to various fields."

"Nowadays," he adds, "we have the capacity to collect a lot of data, both from the internet and from a company’s daily operations and customers. Processing that information properly helps optimize processes and encourages decision-making that increases profitability."

As examples of how Big Data is used, he mentions that, "knowing the type of purchases that users make allows us to offer them what they need and facilitate their purchases at every moment and with a good deal of precision. It's marketing, but it's also a service to the user." And Big Data also makes it possible to "anticipate possible epidemics or pandemics to act in due time, including other natural disasters" or to "detect energy saving strategies based on users’ habits," the ICS researcher concluded.