COST FinAI Summer School 2023

Data Science For Sustainable Finance And Economics

Berlin, Germany, HTW Berlin

August 28 – September 1, 2023

General information about the Summer School:

The Summer School is targeted to bachelor, master or PhD students who are interested in application of quantitative tools to tackle problems of green energy, decarbonised economy and sustainable finance.

This summer school is an intense program where students will dive into the quickly changing subjects of data science, sustainable finance, and economics.

Students will boost their existing skills and learn new ones by working on a shared project. Supporting lectures and teaching materials for self-study will overview state-of-the-art ideas about the connections between data science, sustainable finance. The program will finish with a hands-on project, provided by our business partners.

The program is supported by COST action, Erasmus+.

For whom: Bachelor, Master Students and PhD students
Funding: travel grants for incoming students are available, please state clearly in your motivation letter about the required funding
Costs: no tuition fee
Course Design:
- Interdisciplinary approach;
- Blend of theoretical input, practical application, and case study analysis.

Students will be grouped into diverse international teams of 4-6 people. Each team will work on a case study with a real dataset, supplied by our industry partner, featuring interdisciplinary questions at the intersection of data science, energy, green finance, sustainable economics and quantitative methods.

Prerequisites:

Minimum 5^th term of Bachelor in Data Science, Economics, Finance, Statistics, Mathematics or any related studies,
Programming experience in Python or R programming languages is desirable,
Strong knowledge of English (between B2 and C1).

Application procedure:

In order to apply for the Summer School, students need to submit following documents:

A curriculum vitae with (max length is 1 page) with GPA (Grade Point Average)
A motivation letter (max length is 1 page) explaining briefly their personal motivation for taking part in this programme (why it is relevant to them)

Application period: June 5: Application open on the website, July 7: Deadline – last day to apply.

Announcement of results: July 15, 2023.

Contact: Any questions or comments, please contact the organizing committee at this e-mail address: ds.sustainable.finance.economics@gmail.com

Registration

Schedule

Monday (28.08.23)
08:30 – 09:00	Registration, Sound check with online participants
09:00 – 09:15	Greetings and welcoming remarks
09:15 – 10:00	Introduction to sustainable finance	Prof. Dr. Jan-Alexander Posth
10:00 – 10:15	Coffee Break
10:15 – 11:15	Project introduction “Sustainable Finance in Real Estate: a hands-on, sectoral walk-through on climate risks and opportunities”	Dr. Christian Spindler, Sustainaccount
11:15 – 11:30	Coffee Break
11:30 – 12:30	Project introduction “Day-ahead probability forecasting for redispatch 2.0 measures based on electricity prices, renewable infeed and residual load”	Dr. Awdesch Melzer, Ifesca GmbH
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch	Mensa HTW Wilhelminenhof
13:30 – 14:30	Project introduction “Green Bond Valuation”	Dr. Michael Althof, Foundation Combat Climate Change
14:30 – 15:00	Coffee Break
15:00 – 17:15	Bond Pricing & Option Pricing in a Nutshell	Prof. Dr. Jan-Alexander Posth, Prof. Dr. Natalie Packham
18:00 – 20:00	Welcome dinner for all participants	Restaurant Sonnendeck

Tuesday (29.08.23)
09:00 – 09:45	Role of Green Fintech in Promoting Economic Growth, Evidence From The OECD Countries : Panel Data Analysis	Dr. Εsra Kabaklarlı
09:45 – 10:30	How to combine ESG scores? A proposal based on credit rating prediction.	Prof. Dr. Alessandra Tanda
10:30 – 11:00	Coffee Break
11:00 – 12:30	ML methods for forecasting in energy markets	Dr. Alla Petukhina, Prof. Dr. Christina Erlwein-Sayer
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 15:00	Blending data analysis and optimization techniques for efficient trading of variable renewable energy	Dr. Nikolaos Thomaidis
15:00 – 15:15	Coffee Break
15:15 – 16:00	Imbalanced data in ML	Prof. Dr Daniel Traian Pele
16:00 – 17:30	Project Work in groups

Wednesday (30.08.23)
09:00 – 12:30	Project Work in groups
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 17:30	Social Programm (Boat trip & Reichstag excursion)

Thursday (31.08.23)
09:00 – 12:30	Project Work
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 15:00	First short presentation & Feedback
15:30 – 17:00	Project Work

Friday (01.09.23)
09:00 – 10:30	Project Work
10:30 – 11:00	Coffee Break
11:00 – 12:30	Projects’ Presentations
12-30 – 13:30	Lunch
13:30 – 15:00	Projects’ Presentations
15:00 – 15:30	Wrap-up and closing remarks

Partner Universities:

University of Applied Sciences for Engineering and Economics (HTW Berlin)
Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW)
University of the Aegean
University of Pavia
Berlin School of Economics and Law (HWR Berlin):
The Bucharest University of Economic Studies – ASE Bucuresti
Politecnico Milano
Oles Honchar Dnipro National University
Dniprovsky State Technical University

Industry Partners:

Foundation combat climate change (Switzerland)
Ifesca GmbH (Germany)
Sustainaccount (Switzerland)

Organizing Committee:

Dr. Alla Petukhina

HTW Berlin

Prof. Dr. Nikolaos Thomaidis

University of the Aegean

Prof. Dr. Alessandra Tanda

University of Pavia

Prof. Dr. Christina Erlwein-Sayer

HTW Berlin

Prof. Dr. Jan-Alexander Posth

ZHAW Zurich

Prof. Dr. Natalie Packham

HWR Berlin

Prof. Dr. Nataliya Togobytska

HTW Berlin

Prof. Dr. Peter Schwendner

ZHAW Zurich

Αlexios Ioannis Moukas

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki