Bastiaan Quast is a Dutch-Swiss

Machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

researcher. He is the author and lead maintainer of the open-source rnn an
transformer
deep-learning frameworks in the

R programming language R is a programming language for statistical computing and data visualization. It has been widely adopted in the fields of data mining, bioinformatics, data analysis, and data science. The core R language is extended by a large number of so ...

, and the datasets.load GUI package, as well as R packages on

Global Value Chain A global value chain (GVC) refers to the full range of activities that economic actors engage in to bring a product to market. The global value chain does not only involve production processes, but preproduction (such as design) and postproduction ...

decomposition & WIOD and on

Regression Discontinuity Design In statistics, econometrics, political science, epidemiology, and related disciplines, a regression discontinuity design (RDD) is a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest design that aims to determine the causal effects of interventions by assigning ...

. Quast is a great-great-grandson of the

Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish language, Swedish and ) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the Will and testament, will of Sweden, Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobe ...

laureate

Tobias Asser Tobias Michael Carel Asser (; 28 April 1838 – 29 July 1913) was a Dutch lawyer and legal scholar. In 1911, he won the Nobel Peace Prize (together with Alfred Fried) for his role in the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the ...

Early life and education

Bastiaan Quast graduated from

University of Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; , abbreviated as RUG) is a Public university#Continental Europe, public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen (city), Groningen, Netherlands. Founded in 1614, th ...

with a bachelor's degree in

Economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...

and bachelor's degree in

Theoretical philosophy The modern division of philosophy into theoretical philosophy and practical philosophyImmanuel Kant, ''Lectures on Ethics'', Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 41 ("On Universal Practical Philosophy"). Original text: Immanuel Kant, ''Kant’s G ...

. He holds a master's degree in

Econometrics Econometrics is an application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical content to economic relationships. M. Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics", '' The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics'', v. 2, p. 8 p. 8 ...

from the

University of St. Gallen The University of St. Gallen (HSG) is a research university located in St. Gallen, Switzerland, that specialises in business administration, economics, law, international affairs, and computer science. It was established in 1898. It consistent ...

He obtained his Ph.D from the

Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (, abbreviated IHEID), commonly referred to as Geneva Graduate Institute, is a graduate-level research university in Geneva, Switzerland dedicated to international relations, dev ...

with advisors Richard Baldwin and Jean-Louis Arcand, his work on local languages and internet usage was discussed at the 2017

G20 The G20 or Group of 20 is an intergovernmental forum comprising 19 sovereign countries, the European Union (EU), and the African Union (AU). It works to address major issues related to the global economy, such as international financial stabil ...

meeting in Germany.

Career

Quast is an functionary of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

at the

International Telecommunication Union The International Telecommunication Union (ITU)In the other common languages of the ITU: * * is a list of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information ...

, as Secretary of the ITU-WHO Focus Group on Artificial Intelligence for Health and AI for Good. Bastiaan Quast created the popular

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...

framework rnn in R, which allows native implementations of recurrent neural network architectures, such as

LSTM Long short-term memory (LSTM) is a type of recurrent neural network (RNN) aimed at mitigating the vanishing gradient problem commonly encountered by traditional RNNs. Its relative insensitivity to gap length is its advantage over other RNNs, hi ...

and

GRU Gru is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the ''Despicable Me'' film series. Gru or GRU may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Gru (rapper), Serbian rapper * Gru, an antagonist in '' The Kine Saga'' Organizations Georgia (c ...

(>100,000 downloads). While working at

UNCTAD UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations Secretariat that promotes the interests of developing countries in world trade. It was established in 1964 by the United Nations General Assembl ...

, Quast developed the popular package datasets.load, which is part of the top 10% of most downloaded R packages (>100,000). The R packages decompr and wiod have been downloaded >20,000 times.

Bibliography

Kummritz, Victor; Quast, Bastiaan (2017)
Global value chains in developing economies
London, United Kingdom: VoxEU.

References

External links

Bastiaan Quast
{{DEFAULTSORT:Quast, Bastiaan Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Dutch computer scientists Data scientists Computer programmers Swiss computer scientists University of Groningen alumni University of St. Gallen alumni Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies alumni Dutch expatriates in Switzerland R (programming language) people