On Friday, February 1st, Nova SBE launched the first edition of the Machine Learning” course for Master’s students. This course belongs to a series of courses developed in collaboration with Data Science for Social Good Europe, an initiative at Nova SBE lead by Leid Zejnilović. “We are excited to offer our students training on such an important topic, delivered by world-class experts,” says Professor Zejnilovic.

Professor Qiwei Han, one of the co-teachers of this course, welcomed the students to the course and emphasized the importance of these technical skills for the upcoming generations, as they need “to be better prepared to work at organizations that are increasingly data-driven and dependent on automation in their operations. Machine learning is a critical skill for students to master in order to help them to perform data-driven decision making.” Professor Han is the chief technology officer at Data Science for Social Good Europe. 

The Machine learning course at Nova SBE is co-taught by Professor Rayid Ghani, the founder of Data Science for Social Good and director of the Center for Data Science and Public Policy at the University of Chicago. In 2012, Rayid was the chief data scientist for the Obama for America 2012 Campaign. He joined in for the first class via video conference. “The goal of this class is to enable students to make an impact on all aspects of society by teaching them how to understand and formulate problems, how to use machine learning to solve them, and how to communicate the impact of the new approaches, so businesses, governments, and NGOs change how they make decisions” said Professor Ghani.

We are looking forward to having Professor Ghani delivering part of the lectures in person during the first week in March at Nova SBE.

For students, artificial intelligence is an attractive topic. In the words of João Franco, a Master's student, “(…) it is essential for business schools to have courses like this one because the skills that we are learning are shaping the future”. For Carolina Martins, a Master's in Finance student, this course “is a way to go a little bit forward, ahead of the new technology (…)”.

Machine learning course started on February 1st, and the lectures will continue until May 12th, 2019.