Promoting the exchange of experiences and knowledge in Data Science; this was the main objective of Data Powwow 2025, an annual Data Science event that brought together several experts in Porto, including lecturers, researchers, students, and industry professionals, to discuss the topic, showcase projects, and encourage partnerships.
The event featured thematic lectures, master’s theses presentations, a roundtable, and a scientific poster exhibition, welcoming around 150 participants at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Porto (FEP) – promoting dialogue and encouraging the sharing of ideas.
João Gama, INESC TEC researcher in Artificial Intelligence, participated in the roundtable entitled “AI in everyday life: Best practices, impacts, and challenges”, which also included representatives from companies like NOS, ISS, and Feedzai, sparking debate on the ethical and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in daily life. “Data Powwow is a meeting by students for students, young learners about to enter the labour market; one of the key topics was the discussion of AI’s impact on employment. We can all agree that job market requirements are changing and new challenges are emerging. Continuous learning, critical thinking, and thinking outside the box will become increasingly important,” explained João Gama.
Pedro Amorim, INESC TEC researcher in industrial engineering and management and professor at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), was one of the keynote speakers. In his talk “Data Science is failing – And that’s why you should be excited”, he reflected on the challenges of data science in generating impact within organisations.
Other topics addressed during the day included causal discovery in AI, AI literacy and ethics in data use, as well as the presentation of a practical case study applying AI to tackle digital piracy.
The third edition of Data Powwow took place on 10 October and was organised by students from three master’s programmes at the University of Porto in the fields of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, namely Modelling, Data Analysis and Decision Support Systems (FEP), Data Science (Faculty of Sciences), and Data Science and Engineering (FEUP).
The researchers mentioned in this news piece are associated with the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP) and INESC TEC.
Credits photo: Data Powwow; FEP
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