Big Data Research Centre starts up
Baku, December 15, AZERTAC
BP and its co-venturers in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG), Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC), Shah Deniz (SD), and South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) - SOCAR, TPAO, PETRONAS, Chevron, LUKOIL, NICO, Statoil, Inpex, ExxonMobil, SGC, Itochu, ONGC, TOTAL, ENI - have launched the first Big Data Research Centre in Azerbaijan. The project, which started last year, is part of BP’s and its co-ventures’ commitment to supporting the development of education and capacity-building in the country.
The Centre is based in Baku’s ADA University where a new Master’s Degree programme in Big Data Analytics and Data Sciences will commence to help meet the country’s needs for data scientists and big data analysts. The Centre will also have a wider impact - it will be open to public institutions and private sector representatives providing them access to its resources.
Addressing the event which marked the opening of the Centre, Prof. Hafiz Pashayev, Rector of the ADA University, said: “The establishment of the Centre is very important to the entire academic community in the country. It will expand research capabilities across all disciplines and contribute to an improved research ecosystem. The School of IT and Engineering has spearheaded our efforts for launching the Centre by creating workspace and laboratory equipped with necessary computing facilities. I am convinced the Centre will further strengthen the mutually beneficial academic and industrial partnership.”
Gary Jones, BP’s Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, said: “BP and its co-venturers are pleased to open this new big data centre - the first of its kind and I would say a unique facility to start a new industry sector in the country. We believe it opens vast opportunities for the country to become part of the global big data market and a regional hub in big data processing.
“Most importantly it will boost the development of qualified data scientists, data and information engineers and big data analytics professionals for the country. We are very pleased with the level of cooperation we have built with the Ministry of Education and ADA University. Together, we can do a lot to help the country to enhance capacities, capabilities and competencies in a range of areas including data science practices.”
Over the past year a library on data analytics has been established, all equipment and resources including hardware and software and 30 workstations have been installed, staff have been trained and the Centre is now ready to start functioning.
The one year project started in October 2016 and is implemented by the ADA University. The value of the project is $410,000.
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