Written by: Abdullah Al-Khashawi 

As part of its monthly seminar series, the Department of Information Sciences at the College of Life Sciences at Kuwait University hosted a seminar entitled “Geospatial Data Analysis: When Data Engineering Meets Social Sciences to Enable Multidisciplinary Applications”, during which Dr. Amr Magdy, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and Founding Member of the Center for Geospatial Sciences at the University of California, Riverside, USA, discussed the importance of spatial statistical analysis in enabling multidisciplinary applications, as part of his work to develop new tools for analyzing big spatial data. 

Dr. Magdy pointed out that the rapid spread of modern technologies has resulted in the generation of huge amounts of spatial data, from which knowledge can be extracted that supports a wide range of fields and enables researchers and practitioners to conduct accurate and efficient analyses of big spatial data, while enhancing applications in various fields such as urban planning, environment, and public health, noting that, however, current spatial data analysis tools face challenges in dealing with this large volume of data efficiently, highlighting a gap between big data systems and spatial analysis tools. 

In the lecture, he explained how to bridge this gap by developing innovative technologies that combine the capabilities of data engineering and social sciences, stressing that this integration between data engineering and social sciences not only enhances the quality of analysis, but also opens new horizons for cooperation between different disciplines, which contributes to the development of innovative solutions to contemporary challenges.