Alongside presentations by the PhD students, this year’s program featured group discussions for the first time, focusing on topics chosen by the students themselves: What role do AI tools play during a PhD? And what makes a good research question?

There was also plenty of time for conversations beyond the scientific program. A hike from Cardada to Cimetta and joint research walks provided opportunities to exchange ideas, make new connections, and get to know one another better.

The objective of the PhD program is the joint method training of PhD students in the intersection between algorithmic and mathematical foundations of statistical data analysis and machine learning on the one hand and the system-oriented foundations of databases, computer networks and high performance computing on the other hand. Doctoral students should thus acquire the basics for the entire "Big Data Pipeline", from data generation, storage and processing to application-specific analysis of the data and visualization of the results.