In this talk I give a brief summary of the goals associated with the RDA/CODATA working group on Summer Schools in Cloud computing that I gave to the ICT4D group at Royal Holloway.

1. Research Data Science and its
potential impact in Low and Middle
Income countries
Hugh Shanahan
Hugh.Shanahan@rhul.ac.uk
@hughshanahan

2. Opportunities for LMIC Researchers
from the Data Deluge
In many research fields, data becoming more open
Public data gradually becoming more open as well
Placement of sites in LMIC - Square Kilometre Array

3. Example - Bioinformatics
PBytes of Omic data freely available
Good basic Science can be done just
by analysing these data sets
Clear results from test species could be
applied to local species

4. Square Kilometre Array
Array of Radio Telescopes
Most of these to be South Africa
South Africa wants to own this
not just be the site
1 PByte of data per day

5. Challenges
Absence/deficit of infrastructure
Equipment / Electricity / IT Support;
Internet access - though improving
Online collaboration and communities
Absence/deficit of awareness (leading to funding gap)
Absence/deficit of education and training

6. Solutions
Provide training through Summer School system
to create cohort of Professionals who cognisant in
Research Data Science
Provide access to cloud computing
resources that have the data

7. Organisations
Co-chair of Working Group RDA/CODATA Summer Schools
in Data Science and Cloud Computing in the Developing
World
RDA - young organisation (<3 years) for Data sharing
CODATA - 40 year old organisation with deep interest
in developing world research

8. Schools in Research
Data Science
Give attendees an introduction to principles behind
Data Science and how it can be applied.
Aim to make this a professional qualification
Focus on standards
avoid reinvention of the wheel
sharing data

9. Outline
Vanilla
Flavour
Flavour

10. Vanilla covers the basics
for anyone with BSc/BA
Machine Learning/Statistics
Software Carpentry
Data Carpentry
Infrastructures
Visualisation
Curriculum

11. Cover topics that represent issues specific to disciplines
Flavoured schools
Examples :-
Extreme Data
Life Sciences
Databases/Geospatial

12. Partners so far

13. Cloud Computing
Technical solution to infrastructure problem
Cost for individual LMIC researcher is barrier
Free at the point of use cloud facilities

14. Use case - North African Bioinformatics
Potential user community based in
Morocco,Tunisia and Egypt
Suggestion - Federated clouds to find resources in
“the cracks”.