Student Assistant: Automated Historical Map Reconstruction in Zürich

Chair of Applied Economics: Innovation and Internationalization
The chair of applied economics headed by Prof. Dr. Peter Egger pursues research mainly in the areas of applied international and public economics and in applied econometrics.

We are furthering our group's previous research on the rapid development of China's overland transport system in recent decades. For past work look at on this subject:  

You will digitalize paper maps of the Chinese overland road and rail network on a yearly bases. 

• Scanning physical maps
• Geolocating scanned maps in GIS-software

You will develop or adapt an AI-pipeline (likely deep learning based) to extract the transportation networks as vector data from the digitalized maps

• Extract today’s road network from open street map (OSM) and process the vector data
• Match with internal digitals network with todays OSM-network
• Develop, adapt and employ automatic deletion script
• Analyze quality of the output
• Maybe: Help with economic analysis of the network evolution

General requirements

• Master student from ETH/Uni. Ideally, in the field of computer science, data science, GIS.
• You can start ASAP and stay with the team for at least 6 months and ideally 12 months. 

Skill set:

• Python/R and GIS, handling of both vector and pixel based geo data (shape-files and GeoTIFF) is required
• Exposure to AI/deep learning (pytorch, tensorflow or similar) is a plus
• Chinese is a plus

Languages: English

You can start as soon as possible. We encourage students from study programs with a focus on remote sensing, GIS, and urban planning to apply. You must be enrolled at a Swiss University and must be willing to work 15h/week on average during the semester. It is possible to work more during the semester breaks (up to 40 hours possible). We handle working time flexibly such that you can take time to study for exams or fulfil other obligations for your studies while coordinating with the team when tasks need to be completed. Ideally, we are looking for individuals who can stay employed as a student assistant for at least one year (e.g., while taking courses for their Bachelor's or Master's degree), possibly longer.

We offer a friendly work environment where bringing in own ideas is encouraged. Work hours can be allocated highly flexible and remote work is generally possible to fit a typlcle student's life well. We reward dedication with ample freedom and the opportunity to steer the direction of our projects and making an impact. Spinoff-master thesis are always welcome. In addition, we offer a standard ETH student assistent compensation.