Dear friends and colleagues,

It was this time of year nearly 12 years ago that we started planning the first AI, Big Data, & Business Analytics Summit at Wayne State University which ran in 2012. When we started these annual summits, we were the only event of its kind in metro Detroit, and we bridged academics with industry. Over the years it was important to us that the summits remain a place for industry to learn new skills and techniques and not become just a “sales pitch” for every new service or technology platform. Our focus has always been on learning and sharing best practices from Case Study Presentations to Panels to Keynotes.

“What makes this event is the interaction of people, the sharing of ideas, and being able to bring a community together to have a good dialog around big data” – Nick Curcuru, Former VP @ Mastercard

We have seen nearly 600 different businesses and 2,500+ people from across the United States and Canada attend the summits over the years.

Unfortunately, after some careful deliberation, we have concluded that the summits have run their course and there is no longer a need for us to host them. While we have tried to revive the summits since the pandemic stalled us in March 2020, it has become harder for us to bring high-level speakers, sponsors, and registrations to make our events just as successful as in the past. This can be attributed to two reasons. First, we believe we have achieved our goal of raising awareness within the business community for the importance as well as best practices for effectively leveraging AI, big data, and analytics technologies for operational excellence and competitiveness. The second reason is the availability of many corporate-budgeted conferences in this domain.

While it is unfortunate that we must cancel the 2023 AI, Big Data, & Business Analytics Summit, the work of the AI, Big Data, and Business Analytics Group at Wayne State will continue!

We cannot thank you enough for your support, whether it was for 2023, 2020, or for the past 12 years! If you would like to stay engaged with the AI, Big Data, & Analytics Group in the future, we have several options:

• Sponsor an Industry Practicum Project with our M.S. Data Science & Analytics Program
• Support a Student Scholarship for our M.S. in Data Science & Analytics Program
• Become a Guest Speaker, Mentor, or provide Internships for our Data Science Students

While the Summit is ending, we look forward to working with you in the future as we continue to train the next generation of data scientists.

Sincerely,

Drs. Ratna Chinnam, Toni Somers, and Patrick Gossman