COMSATS partnered with the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) Young Affiliates Network (TYAN), TWAS Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Partner (TWAS SAREP), TWAS Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Partner (TWAS LACREP), TWAS Arab Regional Partner (TWAS-AREP), and Association for Computing Machinery – Women Europe (ACM-W) to organize the 2nd African Symposium on Big Data, Analytics and Machine Intelligence and the 6th TYAN International Thematic Workshop “Data Science for Solution-driven and Sustainable Response to current developing world challenges”. The two events were virtually held on 3rd and 4th December 2020, and had the participation of over 50 researchers, students, scientists, faculty members and data scientists from various developing countries.

Dr. Bolanle Ojokoh, Executive Board Member of the TWAS Young Affiliates Network (TYAN) & Associate Professor, Department of Information Systems, Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Nigeria, inaugurated the event on 3rd December 2020. During her address, Dr. Ojokoh viewed data science as an emerging field with capabilities to accomplish complex tasks at levels beyond human skills. She stated that the digital technologies, big data and artificial intelligence enable the collection, organization and analysis of large data sets in order to reveal patterns and trends that can help address socio-economic needs of the developing countries.

Speaking on the occasion, Executive Director COMSATS, Dr. S. M. Junaid Zaidi, regarded artificial intelligence based solutions central to accelerating and sustaining socio-economic growth in current age. He looked forward to building collaboration with relevant stakeholders in the fields of big data and artificial intelligence to pool resources for meeting socio-economic needs of the developing countries. Prof. Yin Li, Chairperson TYAN, and Dr. Ruth Lennon, Chairperson, ACM-W, also spoke at the inaugural and thanked COMSATS and other partners for joining hands for the present event. They considered the present event important for sharing knowledge on contemporary trends and building capacity for researchers in data science in the context of COVID-19 and sustainability.

Through various topics covered during the two-day event, the participants learned about the latest advancements in the field of data science and artificial intelligence. The event provided a networking opportunity to the participants to collaboratively work out effective internet/information security solutions for the masses; as well as integrate data science for solving contemporary issues and to achieve sustainability in every aspect.

Various topics covered during the technical sessions imparted knowledge on a number of topics pertinent to the theme. These included: digital signal classification; cyber security; cloud computing security; risk assessment; digital forensics; ethical hacking; data science for health-tech solution: AI-based response to covid-19; intelligent wireless surveillance; epidemiological surveillance using big data analytics; data science and Lassa fever; global challenges and sustainable development; data science for health related applications; and social and ethical impacts of algorithms.