In the short term and as good as it gets, education is made suitable for the scenario that we have to stay home for months to come. People unite forces to test tools that enable students and staff to continue with their daily activities without coming together physically.

This raises many, many practical questions. How do you deal with students who usually get extra time or are entitled to other facilities? How will you detect fraud during an exam for two thousand students? How do you deal with students who have left for their country of origin and cannot return now? I’m glad that I’m not the chairman of the exam committee.

However, the Corona crisis also offers opportunities for data scientists. For example, some try to make predictions about the number of infections, but this turns out to be more difficult than expected, because these mathematical models do not take into account demographics and other contextual matters such as people's willingness to stick to measures. For example, Belgians have already shown that they keep going to cafes, even if that means that they have to come to the Netherlands. And Sunday the hardware stores and garden centers were packed because everyone ‘works from home’.

There are also more fundamental questions that present data scientists with interesting challenges for the near future. For example, what do we do if an AI soon accuses a student of fraud during an online exam? Can the student then demand to take the AI to court? This field, also known as responsible data science, will need additional money for fundamental research in the near future.

Altogether, we will probably continue to be troubled by this crisis for some time to come. I especially hope that everyone remains mentally healthy. Because that extra effort must be at the expense of something else.