Purdue’s New Digital Science Initiative
At the request of Tomas Diaz de la Rubia, the Lab is participating in the design of town hall sessions with faculty to support a new digital science initiative. Announced by Jay Akridge, Interim Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity, and Suresh Garimella, Executive Vice President for Research and Partnerships, the initiative is designed to:
- Prepare our students to engage fully in a data-driven world;
- Empower our faculty by creating a research ecosystem that supports the data science needs and interests of faculty across campus;
- Engage with our partners in areas of scholarly focus were Purdue brings unique strengths; and
- Transform our state by realizing the potential data science for economic development.
The challenge of designing the town hall sessions involves the breadth of the data science activities across campus. Within two months, we want to identify the strategic focus areas which represent the strength of Data Science at Purdue. Defining those focus areas in a meaningful, inclusive and practical way is tricky. We will use the disciplines of agile strategy to frame these opportunities.
In addition to the town hall sessions, two working groups will be exploring Purdue’s opportunities by connecting with networks of data scientists outside Purdue. We are using the following drawing to guide our thinking:
The Founder of the Lab at UNA and co-author of Strategic Doing: 10 Skills for Agile Leadership, Ed’s work has focused on developing new models of strategy specifically designed to accelerate complex collaboration in networks and open innovation. He is the original developer of Strategic Doing.