7 Nov 2013, Rosarium Amstel Park, Amsterdam

Interesting mix of different sciences and their data-driven research was presented today at the 1st annual Netherlands eScience Center symposium. Impressive diversity in terms of size of the data, types of the data, the sources from which it is collected and numerous use cases on how it used in research. The main topic for the event was “Optimizing Discovery in the Era of Big-Data”. Renè van Schaik introduced the goals and challenges of the center and defined it’s overall scope to achieve enhanced science = eScience.

Fascinating projects were presented by Willem Bouten, University of Amsterdam, on e-Ecology and the evolution of the field with the evolution of mobile phone and sensor technologies, web and big data processing.  Watch a video on this research at NLeSC YouTube Channel.

Very interesting piece of history on hydrology was given by Nick van de Giesen, Technical University Delft in his talk on eWaterCycle – Since the 1700s founding discoveries of hydrology by Perrault, Huygens and Dalton (simplified here – the rain feeds the waters in rivers) there has been little groundbreaking discoveries, until the time of the web and large data research, which now provide grounds for grand challenges for water research. Watch a video on this research at NLeSC YouTube Channel.

And on another side of the science, Piek Vossen, VU University Amsterdam, bridged the Sciences and Humanities by answering in his talk the question “What E connects Science and Humanities?”.

Before lunch the winners were announced of the four edition of the Enlighten Your Research Award for 2013 (aka the big data challenge), which was selected by a jury from representatives of surfSARA, surfNET, SURF, NWO and NLeSC and was presented by the project team members #EYR4.

Check out the event timeline on twitter