Data science, as I’m sure we all know, is an industry steeped in history. Many people assume that it is an industry born within the last 10 years, however, this is not true. Last month I’d written a blog that showcased the storied history of data science. Naturally, data science has such a lengthy history that I simply couldn’t fit it all into one single post. That being said, I figured I would continue the series and highlight a few other important moments in data science’s history.
1989: In 1989, Gregory Piatetsky-Shapiro created the very first Knowledge Discovery in Bases (KDD) workshop which was attended by 69 people. The KDD featured 3 sessions: Data-Driven Discovery, Knowledge-Based Approaches and Systems and Applications. Six years later, the workship would become the ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining.
1996: In Kobe, Japan, several members of the International Federation of Classification Societies (IFCS), which was founded in 1985, meet for their biennial meeting. This meeting was particularly significant as it was the first conference to feature the term “data science” in its title. More specifically, the entire title was “Data science, classification, and related methods.”
2002: Data Science Journal is officially created. The publication produced various articles on data in science and technology and how databases are managed. The journal is published by the Committee On Data for Science and Technology of the International Council for Science.
2003: The Journal of Data Science is launched. The publication tries to incorporate almost anything that has to do with data; this includes analysis, collecting, modeling and the application of data. The publication hopes to provide data scientists to present their discoveries and ideas and to communicate with each other.
2005: “Long-lived Digital Data Collections: Enabling Research and Education in the 21st Century,” published by The National Science Board, is officially published. The report looks to make known the occupation of the data scientist, as well as the importance of the growth of data science.
Data science has been around for several decades, and it is a job of the future. While there is so much to look forward to, there is still so much to look back on. Look for part three of this series sometime soon.