AI4Business Lab
Use cases
Do you have data challenges but don’t have people with the right skills to tackle them? AI4Business has the answers for you! Work with our students, to solve problems such as:
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1. Tailored repayment solutions for bank customers
- Problem: Bank clients default on their loan, too many to immediately follow-up.
- Objective: Identify groups who do not need urgent help and those who can benefit significantly from help through the use of AI and analytics.
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2. Predict demand to optimise personnel work hours
- Problem: Difficult to plan personnel due to fluctuations in demand in restaurants in hotel chains.
- Objective: Predict demand using internal data (sales etc.) and external weather data (KNMI).
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3. Optimise location for municipality health services
- Problem: What are the best locations for new health centres?
- Objective: Identify optimal locations to minimise travel time for the whole population.
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4. Optimise shelf spacing in large supermarkets
- Problem: How much shelf space should be allocated to different products?
- Objective: Allocate optimal shelf space based on forecasted demand using historic sales data.
Collaboration opportunities
We offer 2 main collaboration opportunities:
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Data challenges (solved by Bachelor's or Master's students)
Do you have data readily available, and a fairly specific business question? Our Business Analytics students could help you with your data challenges faced in your organisation and write their thesis based on this data challenge.
- Let our student groups solve your data challenge – get multiple innovative solutions.
- Duration: 12 weeks in the spring.
- Costs: There are no costs attached to this project. You will only need to share data and invest a few hours to explain your challenge.
- Interested? Learn more about the data challenges or submit your challenge directly.
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Collaborative research projects (conducted by Master's or PhD students)
Do you have business analytics questions but lack the time to solve them? Work with us to collaborate on an analytics project in which we will analyse existing and possibly newly collected data and provide you with actionable insights.
- We take your AI challenges and develop actionable solutions.
- Duration: a few months for masters research, and up to 4 years for PhD projects
- Cost: Pay for students’ research time, share data and invest time to collaborate.
Our aims
- Provide students with hands-on experience by introducing them to genuine business analytics problems.
- Advance high-quality applied research within the business analytics discipline.
- Build a bridge between academia and businesses.
- Provide a platform for AI and analytics collaborations
Collaboration
AI4Business Lab collaborated with the Reinwardt Academie to analyse the provenance and authenticity of artifacts sold on Catawiki. Using data collected by Reinwardt’s students, we discovered that provenance statements differ significantly across an artifact’s cultural region.
Team
The organising team is involved in the day-to-day activities and coordination of the AI4Business Lab (AI4B) initiatives and events. The team aims to provide students with hands-on experience by introducing them to genuine business analytics problems. The AI4Business lab is support by faculty members across Economics and Business.
Data Challenges and data sharing
For a data challenge, our partner organisations typically share data with our students. We offer the following data sharing options, depending on your needs:
- Share data file directly with the students (without any restrictions).
- Share data file directly with the students and sign the NDA.
- Create a synthetic data file, mirroring the real data's characteristics but without confidentiality concerns, for student use.
- We can create a virtual environment that allows data providers to control access, ensuring students cannot download the data (some financial costs are associated with this option).
- Allow students to access the data on-site or via a company laptop.
Typically, for data challenges, we work with options 1, 2 and 3. For longer projects it is common to either set up 4 or 5.
Contact
Interested in learning about AI4Business Lab (AI4B) or collaborating with us? Please reach out to Inez Zwetsloot.