In order to help trade analysts and economists come up to speed with the new technology, tralac is offering a one-week introductory e-Learning course to the techniques and methods of data science. This course will help orientate students around the new practices, tools and terminology.

The course will be applied in the sense that the students will be required to complete exercises during the learning process, as well as a small project with results presented on the final day. The course will introduce, but not require coding for completion, rather the data science workflow will be completed using the Knime Desktop Analytics Platform.

Introduction and motivation

The deluge of data generated by online activities and activities involving devices and the internet of things (IOT) has led to the growth of a new area of specialisation entirely dedicated to the effective usage of this data. ‘Data Science’ refers to the practice of acquiring, analysing and communicating insights from data, with the primary purpose of generating actionable insights to the solving of problems. The obvious example is that of an e-commerce business wishing to acquire insights on how better to market products to its customers, but the same tools are used to generate solutions to medical, biological, security-related and climactic problems too (among others). Indeed it is safe to say that at the time of writing, new applications for the techniques of data science are being discovered and applied.

While generally not requiring the technologies related to ‘big data’, trade analysis can benefit substantially from the other cornerstone of the data science field – statistical learning. These techniques (known as ‘machine learning’ when applied on modern high powered computers) can reveal accurate predictions and inference around many of the problems that trade analysts are required to solve.

The Trade Law Centre (tralac) is an NPC focussed on trade, trade and industrial regulation and economic integration in Africa. In order to help trade analysts and economists come up to speed with the new technology, tralac is offering a one-week introductory e-Learning course to the techniques and methods of data science. This course will help orientate students around the new practices, tools and terminology. The course will be applied in the sense that the students will be required to complete exercises during the learning process, as well as a small project with results presented on the final day. The course will introduce, but not require coding for completion, rather the data science workflow will be completed using the Knime Desktop Analytics Platform.

Programme

Most sessions are a combination of teaching via online webinar presentations and interactive webinar sessions covering applied exercises using Knime. The primary deliverable by participants is the project, which is based on a tralac case study.

Dates: 23-27 August 2021

To apply, please contact: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. (by 6 August 2021)