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Data Science Lab

AI for cultural heritage

The KBR Data Science Lab serves as a research and development hub where the primary objective is to bring together inspiration, expertise and resources for data intelligence in the cultural heritage sector.

Project goals

The Data Science Lab has two main goals:

  • Facilitating both fundamental and applied research in areas such as mathematical modeling, image and natural language processing.
  • Promoting the implementation of the relevant research outputs in digitization workflows.

What is Data Science?

Our society is continuously being transformed by the rapid development especially in digital technologies, where the invisible numbers, either carried by the electromagnetic wave propagating in between different mobile devices and the base stations, or computed by processing units in computers or smart devices, enable us to hear, to read, to see, to learn and to create in ways that could not even be imaged before. Such transformation has led to the emergence of data science, where some of the primary interests lie in collecting and analyzing data such that new information can be extracted, unknown patterns can be detected and artificial intelligence (AI) can be trained to provide entirely new services.

“Data is just like crude [oil]. It’s valuable, but if unrefined it cannot really be used. It has to be changed into gas, plastic, chemicals, etc. to create a valuable entity that drives profitable activity; so must data be broken down, analyzed for it to have value.” –Michael Palmer

Partners

To achieve its goals, the KBR Data Science Lab is established based on a long-term collaboration with the Digital Mathematics (DIMA) research group from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).

This collaboration is supported and financed by the Belgian Science Policy Office (Belspo) in the context of the FED-tWIN programme.

Lead Person

Prof. Dr. Tan Lu

Promoters

  • Frédéric Lemmers, Head of Digitisation at KBR
  • Prof. Dr. Ann Dooms, Head Professor of Digital Mathematics (DIMA) at VUB