CubeMatch Ireland consultants attended this year's National Analytics Summit, in the Convention Centre (Dublin), hosted by the Analytics Institute. Over 1,000 delegates from all areas of data analytics attended the summit.
The summit focused heavily on ethical considerations in data analytics, data governance, and artificial intelligence. A panel discussion, featuring Microsoft (Brian Mullan), AIB (Jonathan Duggan), AON (Yvonne Jacobi), EY (Eoin O'Reilly), and Oracle (Mike Connaughton) was the centrepiece of the ethics discussion. Claire Mortimer (IBM) made a strong case that all companies should adopt an ethical approach to their data management and use.
Among the other speakers to give presentations on the ways that data analytics and artificial intelligence have been and are being used :
- Neil Gibson (EY) gave a preview of the upcoming National Economic Impact Study on analytics and AI in Ireland.
- Dr. Steve Chien (NASA) spoke about how satellites in Earth’s orbit are using AI to photograph the planet, and how the same AI technology can be used to explore Mars, and the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
- Mark Gallagher (Formula 1) explained how, after the death of his friend Ayrton Senna, data analytics was used to reduce deaths in the sport (from 40 in 45 years, to 1 in the last 25 years).
- Jonathan Duggan (AIB) gave a snapshot of the digit growth and innovation in the bank, and how data analytics is used to both plan new products and understand the feedback from customers.
- Manuel Martin Marquez (CERN) allowed the audience to see how technology, and data analytics helped to find the Higgs boson, and is now helping to plan the next wave of construction at CERN.
- Dave Hackett (The Information Lab) showed how the proper presentation of data could be a powerful tool to win over an audience.
- Paul Jones (SAS) gave an interesting talk on how AI, and data analytics can be combined to provide preventative alerts around mundane tasks like track maintenance.