INFORMS Open Forum

Analytics for a Better World Initiative

  • 1.  Analytics for a Better World Initiative

    Posted 04-19-2020 21:24

    We are announcing a Webinar "Analytics for a Better World Webinars (ABW-W)".   Every month we will organize one webinar (via Zoom) on a high societal impact Analytics project. The focus of the webinars is not on theoretical innovation, but on impact. These webinars will be recorded, and the videos can be used in your Analytics courses.

    If you are interested in participating in ABW-W, please write an e-mail to Dick den Hertog (D.denHertog@tilburguniversity.edu). 
    We will send a zoom link few days before the ABW-W. 

     

    Please, feel free to forward this e-mail to others who might be interested in this new initiative.

    The first two ABW-W are as follows: 

    Wednesday April 29, 2020,  EST 11AM (CET 17.00 PM)

    Speaker: Dimitris Bertsimas (MIT, Cambridge)

    He will present the ongoing  work of his group of 20+ PhD and Master students and colleagues at MIT (http://www.covidanalytics.io/team) on a variety of aspects of COVID-19. More details on the talk: see below.

    Wednesday May 27, 2020, CET 17.00 PM  

    Speakers: Koen Peters (World Food Programme and Zero Hunger Lab, Tilburg University), Hein Fleuren (Zero Hunger Lab, Tilburg University)

    They will highlight Tilburg University's (The Netherlands) work at the United Nations - World Food Programme (WFP) headquarters in Rome.  By applying analytics they were able to make significant breakthroughs in the operational excellence of WFP's most complex operations, such as Iraq and Yemen. More details on the talk: see below.

    We will record the talks, and make the videos available to you afterwards. 

    A few days before the ABW-W we will send you the ZOOM-link. 

    Kind regards,


    Dimitris Bertsimas (MIT, Cambridge, US)
    Dick den Hertog (Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands)

    ==============================================



    Why ABW-W?
    ------------------
    COVID-19 is one of the big challenges our society is facing nowadays, and there are many more. We believe that Analytics can be of much value to
    improve our world. It is encouraging to see that more and more (especially young) Analytics researchers are enthusiastic to use Analytics to make this
    world a better place. Analytics has, e.g., already contributed significantly to the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

    To make these contributions of Analytics for a Better World more visible, and to stimulate research in this area, we have started a new initiative:
    "Analytics for a Better World Webinars (ABW-W)".   Every month we will organize one webinar (via Zoom) on a high societal impact
    Analytics project. The focus of the webinars is not on theoretical innovation, but on impact. These webinars will be recorded, and the videos
    can be used in your Analytics courses.


    First ABW-W

    ----------------
    The first speaker is Prof. Dimitris Bertsimas (MIT, Cambridge) who will present the ongoing  work of his group of 20+ PhD and Master students and
    colleagues at MIT (http://www.covidanalytics.io/team) on a variety of aspects of COVID-19 as detailed in  covidanalytics.io. The website contains
    many  downloadable models and data.

    Specifically, he will discuss

    1) a new epidemiological model of the evolution of COVID-19, detailed in https://github.com/COVIDAnalytics/DELPHI

    2)  a new machine learning model (based on optimal classification trees) for predicting mortality using data from an Italian hospital from Cremona Italy detailed in http://www.covidanalytics.io/risk_calculator. Depending on progress he will discuss how to prioritize patients to use ICUs to save more lives.

    3) a new optimization model for allocating ventilators  among states in the US detailed in http://www.covidanalytics.io/ventilator_allocation

    4) a data generation process from 130+ papers written in March 2020 regarding COVID-19 detailed in http://www.covidanalytics.io/dataset  and
    insights gleaned from it http://www.covidanalytics.io/interactive-graph

    The emphasis of this work has been rapid prototyping and implementation. This talk also represents an invitation to researchers around the world to contribute with ideas and analyses of their own in a collaborative spirit with the objective to address this pandemic using analytics.


    Second ABW-W:

    ---------------------

     

    "Dear mathematician: why are you here? We need to move tonnages and help hungry people!"

    In this webinar we will highlight Tilburg University's (The Netherlands) work at the United Nations - World Food Programme (WFP) headquarters in Rome. WFP is the largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, reaching around 90 million people with food assistance in 80 countries each year. By connecting traditional supply chain elements to nutritional objectives, we made significant breakthroughs in the operational excellence of WFP's most complex operations, such as Iraq and Yemen. We show how we used optimization to reduce the operational costs in Iraq by 12%, without compromising the nutritional value of the ration.
    Finally we will highlight some of the typical aspects in working as a mathematician in these teams. And we will elaborate on the follow up of this work in the form of the Zero Hunger Lab (ZHL) in Tilburg, The Netherlands.
     
    Speakers:
    Koen Peters, Head of Development for Supply Chain Planning at WFP and PhD at Zero Hunger Lab 
    Hein Fleuren, Professor in applying Business Analytics at Tilburg University and director Zero Hunger Lab

    https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/impact/creating-value-data/zero-hunger-lab



    ------------------------------
    Dimitris Bertsimas
    Professor
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology
    Cambridge MA
    ------------------------------