Love Data Week is observed around Valentine’s Day each year. The actual date of Love Data Week often changes by year and is usually determined by a governing body, but this year, it takes place from February 10 to 14. However, the goal remains the same: celebrating data, and raising global awareness about the importance of data science and management. Stakeholders use the day as an opportunity to convene a community of data scientists and discuss contemporary issues affecting data management, sharing, privacy, preservation, reuse, and delivery.
History of Love Data Week
Data is everywhere and for everyone. Apart from the hype about Big Data and every other viral buzzword, data remains an integral part of digital technology and the basis for meaningful information. As humans become more digitally inclined, we generate larger volumes of data and create more resources for analytical study into behavioral patterns, useful for psychological research, scientific evaluation, and commercial purposes. With this insight, data scientists continuously strive to apply the best practices for managing data and analyzing it to discover distinct patterns and gain insights. Further, they work hard to retain data integrity, uphold its privacy, and keep it away from malicious actors.
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (I.U.P.U.I.) organized the maiden edition of Love Data Week in 2016 as a Valentine’s Day (week) program. To oversee the inaugural Love Data Week, a planning committee coordinated by Heather Coates, Librarian of I.U.P.U.I. Digital Scholarship and Data Management, was appointed. In 2017, the planning committee announced ‘Data Quality’ as the theme of Love Data Week for the year through its official website. In 2018, the theme was ‘Data Stories,’ and the theme for Love Data Week 2019 was ‘Data in Everyday Life.’
Beyond I.U.P.U.I., many institutions, academic libraries, research centers, and universities around the world also participate in Love Data Week — sometimes with their own data-related themes. Lectures, workshops, seminars, virtual events, and data-themed competitions are organized as part of the annual event. Speakers and participants are often invited from across the globe. Even when events vary, the goal remains to raise awareness — notably through social media campaigns — about data and build a worldwide community of data science enthusiasts, scientists, researchers, and librarians.
Love Data Week timeline
The U.K. creates Colossus Mark 1 — widely regarded as the world’s first programmable electronic computer — specifically to analyze large volumes of data and decrypt Nazi codes during WWII.
John W. Tukey publishes his famous article “The Future of Data Analysis” in The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, questioning the relationship between statistics and data analysis.
The International Association for Statistical Computing (I.A.S.C.) is founded with the mission “…to convert data into information and knowledge.”
Computer scientists Mike Cafarella and Doug Cutting launch Apache Hadoop, an open-source framework for storing and analyzing vast volumes of data.
Computer scientists D.J. Patil and Jeff Hammerbacher describe themselves as ‘data scientists.’
Love Data Week FAQs
Is Python mandatory for data scientists?
Although most data scientists recommend proficiency in Python for a successful career, it’s not mandatory. Other valuable languages for data science other than Python include R, JavaScript, Java, C/C++, and C#. Knowledge of SQL is also a great asset.
Are data scientists happy with their jobs?
Apart from an estimated salary ranging from $65,000/year to $153,000/year that data science engineers earn, studies have revealed that most data scientists actually enjoy their job. According to a survey, about 90% of data scientists surveyed opined that they are happy with their job, and 50% admitted that they are thrilled to be data science engineers.
What are the six V's of Big Data?
In 2001, Doug Laney listed the 3V’s (dimensions and properties) of Big Data as Volume, Variety, and Velocity. The other V’s — veracity, value, and variability — were added over time.
Love Data Week Activities
Register for a live event
Celebrate Love Data Week by joining any live event in your locality. If there are none, find out if any organization or institution is hosting a Love Data Week seminar, workshop, or lecture, and register to participate. Usually, you’ll receive a link to join a virtual event while it broadcasts live.
Host an event
Can’t find any Love Data Week organizer near you? How about planning one in your organization or institution? If you’re passionate about data science and data analytics, Love Data Week is a great time to invite like-minded people to speak on the challenges of data science, management, privacy, storage, and retrieval.
Join social media campaigns
Twitter is one of the most used tools for publishing Love Data Week events. You can join data scientists, enthusiasts, and librarians in the commemoration of this year’s Love Data Week by tweeting with #lovedataweek
5 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT DATA SCIENCE
More text data than anything else
91% of the data used in data science and analytics is composed of text data.
More time on data cleaning
According to an I.B.M. study, data scientists actually spend 20% of their time on data analysis, and 80% of their time performing data searches, organization, and cleaning.
Data scientists prefer Python
About 75% of data scientists use Python programming language because of its accessibility, simple syntax, and flexibility.
Only tiny bits of data are analyzed
Only about 0.5% of all forms of data we create are ever analyzed and used.
Loss due to low-grade data
Low-grade data costs organizations worldwide about a loss of 15 million dollars each year, with U.S. businesses alone losing $600 billion every year due to poor data quality.
Why We Love Love Data Week
It’s celebrating data experts
Love Data Week brings to the limelight the innovative efforts of data scientists, analysts, librarians, and engineers who work on different kinds of data to create meaningful information. During this annual event, we have the chance to hear from industry experts and understand their challenges, victories, and prospects.
It’s building a formidable community
One of the aims of Love Data Week is to build a community of professionals that are passionate about data-related issues. As more data experts and librarians convene, they can discuss contemporary issues facing them and formulate actionable solutions to those challenges.
It’s spreading data awareness
Love Data Week is a time to spread global awareness about the significance of data, data research, management, storage, and retrieval. For lovers of data, Love Data Week events are insightful and full of learning opportunities for all.
Love Data Week dates
| Year | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | February 14 | Monday |
| 2023 | February 13 | Monday |
| 2024 | February 12 | Monday |
| 2025 | February 10 | Monday |
| 2026 | February 9 | Monday |
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