December 28, 2024
The Summer Institute in Computational Social Science (SICSS) Calabar 2024 was an exceptional gathering of individuals passionate about the intersection of data science and social issues. Organized by a diverse and dynamic team of experts, including SICSS alumni, academic professionals, and seasoned social entrepreneurs, the event served as a nexus for academics, industry professionals, postgraduate students, and university faculty, all united by their shared interest in leveraging data science techniques to address pressing societal challenges.
This year’s edition stood out for its hybrid format, accommodating 15 in-person and 60 virtual participants, a departure from previous years where the event was exclusively in-person. Among the virtual attendees, an average of 47 participants remained consistent throughout the program, demonstrating the effort to make the program more inclusive and widely accessible.
The organizing committee setup which adopted a town-and-gown approach comprised members of Academic Hive (Juliet John Inyang, Grace Ihejiamaizu Paul-Anietie, Augustine Ogbaji Otobi, and John Inyang), and academic professors from the University of Calabar (Professor Bassey Igri Okon, Professor Enang Udah, and Professor Grace Etuk). SICSS Calabar 2024 boasted a wealth of expertise from various fields, economics, statistics, computer science, agriculture, social sciences and business management.
In addition, the event saw the invaluable contribution of guest facilitators, adding a rich layer of knowledge and insight to the proceedings. Academic Hive spearheaded the organization, with generous funding from the Templeton World Charity Foundation. This financial support covered facilitators’ honorarium, venue rentals, travel expenses, data support for virtual participants, and more, ensuring the event ran smoothly and offered participants the best possible experience.
The impact of SICSS Calabar 2024 extended beyond the event itself, with media coverage from reputable sources such as Opportunity Desk, UNICAL Radio, and other reputable media outlets. This attention highlighted the significance and relevance of the event in addressing critical social issues through data science.
In this post-event report, we will showcase the key highlights, insights, and accomplishments of SICSS Calabar 2024, providing a comprehensive overview of the event’s success and its contribution to the field of data science and social problem-solving.
Following the grant award, a call for applications ran from July 10 to 31, 2024, and was shared through various platforms such as the SICSS Calabar webpage, Academic Hive, Opportunity Desk, and their accompanying social media accounts. Due to the poor response to the call for applications, the program dates were postponed from June 17 - 28 to September 23 - 28, 2024.
A total of 75 (15 in-person and 60 virtual participants) participants were carefully selected following a rigorous selection process with specific attention to current demonstrated interest in data science and high potential to impact others with knowledge gained. The participants were encouraged to take the official pre-SICSS boot camp course. This made it easier for them to learn effectively as the programming language used was R.
SICSS-Calabar engaged facilitators located within and outside Nigeria. This necessitated the hybrid nature of the lectures. External facilitators participated virtually via Zoom, a few others provided pre-recorded video lectures and were available online to answer questions during their sessions. They used presentation slides to deliver their content effectively. These lecture materials were posted on SICSS Calabar 2024 Slack channel in real time, enabling participants to follow the lectures seamlessly.
The week-long event provided an introduction to SICSS and computational social sciences, covering topics such as understanding polarization research, applied data science with R, creating dashboards to explore polarized views on AI using R, big data modeling, and web scraping. In addition to the technical workshop, lectures were delivered on research speed dating - to understand the research interests of the participants, polarized perspectives on gender-based productivity, Machine learning algorithms and analytics, bridging research and policy for national and global Impact, and research proposal presentations.
47 participants worked on three collaborative projects involving the use of computational social science methods (modeling, web scraping, machine learning) to address social issues like polarized views on elections, climate change perceptions and their effects on Africa’s economic development, and climate change impacts on food security, health, and oil exploration communities.
Group project presentations were reviewed by the Directorate of Research and Development, University of Calabar. Following the presentations, certificates of participation were awarded. The 1-week program concluded with a fun tour to further build rapport and teamwork among participants ahead of their post-SICSS group projects.
The major challenges experienced were technical, largely relating to unstable internet connectivity at the training venue and slow loading time of some of the participants’ computers. To mitigate these challenges, a tech-support company was hired to provide unlimited Wi-Fi connectivity throughout the training duration, and a few laptops with dedicated high-end graphics cards were provided to the affected participants.
For the next SICSS, participants will be pre-informed on the minimum computer specification requirement to have for a successful learning experience. Adding to this, requisite software, packages, and course content for the entire session would be sent in advance, to cut down physical installation of the requisite packages during the training session.
A major goal of SICSS-Calabar was to train professionals who had the potential to train others or create an impact in their respective fields.
Some testimonial excerpts are as follows:
“I have interest in computational and data Science, I was taking acourse with University of Harvard on Python programming. My experiencein SICSS-Calabar had made the program easier for me. I will saySICSSCalabar is my gateway to many other computational skills I hadlong desired.” – RAYMOND EWORO
“With a delighted heart, I appreciate everyone for the opportunitytomeet brilliant minds ones more. My transition from coding novice tocoding expert was within two days. I sincerely appreciate the teams andthe leaders from which team minds were imbibed in many hearts.”. -EDISE NDIOHO
“I want to really appreciate the SICSS team very much for putting sucha wonderful Academic learning activity my special thanks go to theorganizing team for always attaining to our needs. On the whole thankyou I really enjoy learning from industry expert.” – John Effiong
“When I arrived Calabar I was expecting to meet very matured andelderly men/women who are organizing the event and to welcome me forthe program. I was shocked and impressed to see young people I couldrelate with handling their different roles diligently.” – PREYE OBA