Center for Business Analytics Data Science Symposium Presentations Now Available

By Larry Porter

The University of Cincinnati's Center for Business Analytics has wrapped its 2020 programming year with its eighth annual Data Science Symposium.

This data science and analytics event, typically held in-person at UC’s Carl H. Lindner Hall, was converted to a four-session virtual event held on consecutive Tuesdays throughout October.

The event attracted more than 1,000 global data science practitioners and leaders representing small and large companies from a wide variety of industries, as well as analytics and data science students and faculty from several institutions.

“The advancement of the business analytics field relies on experts and partners collaborating, sharing research findings and uncovering new trends together,” said Center for Business Analytics Executive Director Glenn Wegryn. “In spite of 2020’s challenges, our center’s pivot to virtual programming has enabled us to engage with more data science practitioners and leaders around the world to do exactly that.”

Each session featured a keynote speaker and two additional presentations. Speakers came from companies such as Kroger, 84.51, Fifth Third Bank, Amazon Web Services, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Beta Vector and UC.

Keynote speakers included:

• Jason Pontin, Senior Advisor, Flagship Pioneering
  • Topic: Future impacts of technology
• Marshall Fisher, UPS Professor, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania
  • Topic: Sell what you’ve made vs. make what’s selling
• Radhika Kulkarni, Vice President, Advanced Analytics, SAS (Retired)
  • Topic: Building analytics teams for success
• Jude Schramm, CIO, Fifth Third Bancorp
  • Topic: Adopting data and analytics into the fiber of a company

“The Data Science Symposium gave me an opportunity to listen to real-world examples of how data science is being used,” said Aubree Lewis, BBA ’22.

Lewis said she particularly enjoyed Fisher’s presentation, “Sell what you’ve made vs. make what’s selling.”

“As someone who grew up with social media, it is fascinating to see that companies are now able to use social media mining to find new insights on their consumers,” she said.

A panel discussion on “Future Impacts of Technology” was moderated by Jason Pontin and featured panelists Jude Schramm, Craig Brabec, VP/Chief Analytics Officer at MacDonald’s, and Carlos Amesquita, former CIO at the Hershey Company.

The Center for Business Analytics has made videos of the keynote speaker presentations and panel available for viewing for all interested in learning about data management, analytics or data science industry.