GDBC Digital Business Thesis Award 2020 on June 29th at Van Swinderenhuys and online

The importance of digitization in business has increased significantly in recent years. These developments build on existing themes such as Information Systems and e-commerce, but also contain more technological and methodological elements as data science, block chain and artificial intelligence.

Given the importance of this field, the Groningen Digital Business Center (GBDC) - in cooperation with the Ubbo Emmius Fund - has organized a Digital Business thesis award. This thesis award is a continuation of the earlier Aart Bosman Award. Prof. Bosman was a professor at the University of Groningen and a pioneer and founder of the field of Information Science in the Netherlands. As a continuation, the GDBC has adopted this initiative and it will be continued under the name Thesis Award Digital Business.

This award is intended for graduate Master students of the University of Groningen who have written a thesis on a subject related to the field of “Digital Business”. The field of Digital Business is interpreted broadly. The subject can be related to all disciplines within business and management, including accounting, finance, HRM, innovation management, marketing, supply chain and operations.

Examples of thesis topics are for example (and certainly not exclusively)::

• Business applications of AI and Data science
• Business applications of robotics
• Advancements in AI, data science and digital technology relevant for business
• Digital strategy and digital transformation of organizations
• Data readiness of organizations
• Digitalisation and sustainability
• Smart industries
• Ethical and legal aspects of AI / Data science
• IoT applications in business
• Applications of robotics in organizations
• Online retail, digital multi-channel management
• Communication in digital business environments

Context

The GDBC Digital Business thesis award is created to stimulate the attention of students in academic education for digital business. With this Award, the GDBC wants to encourage students to choose thesis subjects in the field of digital business and encourage them to contribute to the solutions of digitally related business administration issues. With the Digital Business Thesis Award, the GDBC wants to show the broad possibilities and high quality of graduation projects in the field of Digital Business.

Rules

The thesis award is awarded annually. For the Digital Business Thesis Award of a specific year (e.g. 2020), the thesis must be completed and handed in in that year (2020) but can be defended in - for example - January 2021. The presentation and announcement will then take place in June of the following year (2021). In principle, three theses are nominated. Subsequently, these three students are invited to present their work at the GDBC conference in June. Ultimately, there is of course one winner and she / he receives the thesis prize and an amount of 2000 euros. There are also honourable second and third prizes, of 1000 and 500 euros. The three winners will also be given the opportunity from partner NOO to access the NOO platform with knowledge and experience in the field of Digital Business. The three winners for 2020 – out of 13 thesis – are:

• Leonard Delank: International Business and Management
• Norbert Lagerweij: Econometrics, Operations Research and Actuarial Studies
• Niels Meima: Artificial Intelligence and Computing Science

Jury

The jury for the  award is organized by the GDBC. Jury members are appointed by the GDBC steering group. The jury is composed of people from the GDBC network and from scientific education in the field of digital business. The jury decides which will be the three nominations and the final winner; by majority vote. The jury consists of the following persons:

• Representative of Northern Online Entrepreneurs (NOO): Antje Meindersma
• Representative of Samenwerking Noord (SN): Rolinde Weide
• Representative of the Bernouilli Institute (Faculty of Science and Engineering): Viktoriya Degeler
• Representative of the Faculty Economics and Business: David Langley / Thijs Broekhuizen
• Director of GDBC (chairman of the jury): Tammo Bijmolt

The jury uses the following assessment criteria:

1. a) Topic (30%)

• Relevance to the practice of Digital Business,
• Scientific relevance of the subject within Digital Business,

1. b) Content (50%)

• Clear problem analysis and questioning,
• Good use of literature and theoretical foundation,
• Correct application of methods and techniques,
• Substantiated analysis and presentation of results,
• Substantiated conclusions,
• Relevant recommendations for practice and science.

1. c) Style and presentation (20%)

• Clear, good readable writing style,
• Good structure and structure of the thesis,
• Quality of the presentation during the event.

The event will be on June 29th in Van Swinderenhuys and because of COVID-19 also live on a youtube stream. So save that date in the agenda. We will start at 3.30PM.

Programme: