Every year for the past 30 years the IAC organizes a Winter School which is attended by young researchers from all over the world. The subject chosen for this thirtieth edition is “The Analysis of Big Data in Astronomy”. As a part of the activities related to this annual event, on 9th November at 19.00 hours a lectura will be given about the use of Big Data techniques in real life.

The IAC researcher Jorge Sánchez Almedia will be the person who will explain how the techniques of analysis which are used in Astronomy are the same as those which already affect many aspects of everyday life. After a brief introduction about what “big Data” means, and why artificial intelligence techniques are necessary to analyse them, this will be illustrated by examples of its application in our society. He will analyse how they were used during the political campaign which took Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States, how they are used in medical diagnostics, the way they are used in automatic language translators, and in driverless cars, and in a nod towards the Winter School how they are applied to the morphological classification of galaxies. The lecture will finish with a number of considerations about the powerful impact which these new technologies will have on society.

Interesting links:

Big Data Analysis in Astronomy: http://www.iac.es/winterschool/2018/