Universities are using Foundry - How?

And how Palantir benefits students

I’ve written extensively on Palantir’s reach in the commercial world and how its use by a growing number of companies in an equally growing set of industries is fueling new results for the West. Essentially, Foundry helps the doers do more. But there’s a whole different area in which they are also playing a role, and that is in universities.

One of the biggest challenges universities face is managing large and complex datasets that are generated by research, student records and administrative operations. Foundry can help universities integrate and manage this data more efficiently, working their magic and making it easier to analyze and interpret. By reducing the time and effort involved in managing the data, Foundry allows universities to focus on generating insights that can drive better outcomes. That isn’t just the theory, because I’ve found some specific universities that serve as example of what I’m conveying here.

Before naming them, just think of a platform where different students or researchers can collaborate, analyze and interpret data. Each from their own background and level of expertise, but one common platform that can translate their own ‘language’, we could say, into a tongue known to everyone. This can help accelerate the research process, leading to faster breakthroughs and more innovative discoveries.

Several universities have already adopted Foundry for specific events or for research purposes. I’ve managed to assemble (inside the DataBase, of course) some big entities that use the software; the University of Texas at Austin, UCLA & UPenn… Just to name a few.

Also the University of Manchester, through their GreatUniHack event, and the IC Hack that is held annually at the Imperial College London, are using Foundry for these educational programs.

Of course, the list grows longer when we take into account the universities that are connected to NHS hospitals that we know use Foundry. There are a few that I have inside the DataBase that have been active for almost 1 year, and it keeps growing!

As universities continue to generate more and more data, Foundry will become an increasingly valuable tool for managing and analyzing this data. By providing universities with the tools they need (in the forms of applications built on top of Foundry), Palantir has the potential to transform the higher education sector. Because as I’ve said in the beginning, we are used to see commercial companies use the software, and this is a new chapter that I think Palantir will be promoting in a not so distant future.

I think the benefit here isn’t only in helping universities develop and discover faster and better, or in students becoming more productive, but also in bringing Foundry to them and allowing a familiarization process to happen. So that when they eventually leave their university and access the labor market, they will already know how to operate a platform a lot of companies will be willing to use. It’d be like teaching another language to them.