SAS and Sabancı University unite forces for big data analytics

The SAS Global Academic Program focusses on the development of Data Science and Advanced Analytics skills through active engagements with universities and industry. SAS Turkey became the analytic partner of the Big Data Behavioral Analysis and Visualization Lab which is the first and only big data lab in Turkey, İn Sabancı University as a part of SAS Global Academic Program which supports more than 3000 universities around the world.

Sabancı University President Prof. Dr. A. Nihat Berker said “Reaching information is easier today with advanced technology and internet network. This improvements increased the data and the sources of data. Today, the important thing is not reaching data but using the data. Our university gives great importance to partnerships with business world since its founding. In Sabancı University Big Data Behavioral Analysis and Visualization Lab, we gather the data in the digital universe and give social meaning to them. Thus we create utilized data for the business world. Our partnership with SAS will strengthen our works on big data.”

SAS Turkey General Manager Hakan Erdemli said “We participated the SAS Global Academic Program which supports more than 3000 universities around the world, with Sabancı University in Turkey. It’s very exciting to be the analytic partner of Turkey’s first big data lab. With this project which we support the academic world in data science and advanced analytics, we help students to have this vision and also show how the data of business world can be utilized.”

The lab which was founded with Sabancı University and MIT partnership, Akbank’s strategic and SAS’ analytic support, is the setting for close cooperation and joint research with MIT Media Lab Human Dynamics Group faculty and researchers. The Human Dynamics Group strives to explain the behavior of people in daily life and social settings based on the analysis of Big Data collected from various sources, and seeks to develop mathematical models and techniques for predicting such behavior. Lab director Associate Professor Burçin Bozkaya said “The agreement between SAS Turkey and Sabancı University contains both research and educational partnerships. On the research side SAS Turkey will provide software support to the lab and big data projects will continue. On the educational side, with SAS’ support our new Business Analytics Master and Doctorate programmes will have graduates suitable for the expectations of the business and academic world. Because of these this partnership is very important for us and we believe we’ll have productive results.