Schedule: Executive Briefing and best practices sessions: Data science + business analytics training: Strata Data Conference

9:00am–12:30pm Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Location: 1A 10

Building and leading a successful AI practice for your organization

Secondary topics: Culture and Organization

Rossella Blatt Vital (Wonderlic), Ross Piper (Wonderlic), Daniel Schmerling (Wonderlic)

Creating and leading a successful ML strategy is an elegant orchestration of many components: master key ML concepts, operationalize ML workflow, prioritize highest-value projects, build a high-performing team, nurture strategic partnerships, align with the company’s mission, etc. Rossella Blatt Vital details insights and lessons learned in how to create and lead a flourishing ML practice. Read more.

9:00am–5:00pm Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Location: 1A 08

Findata Day

Alistair Croll (Solve For Interesting), Jennifer Yang (Wells Fargo ECS), Brian Lynch (TD Bank Group), Dan Barker (RSA Security), Rochelle March (Trucost), Catherine Gu (Stanford University), Karan Jaswal (Cinchy), Moto Tohda (Tokyo Century (USA)), Viridiana Lourdes (Ayasdi), Peter Swartz (Altana Trade), Mikheil Nadareishvili (TBC Bank)

From analyzing risk and detecting fraud to predicting payments and improving customer experience, take a deep dive into the ways data technologies are transforming the financial industry. Read more.

1:30pm–5:00pm Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Location: 1A 10

Managing data science in the enterprise

Secondary topics: Culture and Organization

Alexander Izydorczyk (Coatue Managment), Benjamin Singleton (JetBlue), Joshua Poduska (Domino Data Lab)

The honeymoon era of data science is ending and accountability is coming. Not content to wait for results that may or may not arrive, successful data science leaders must deliver measurable impact on an increasing share of an enterprise’s KPIs. The speakers explore how leading organizations take a holistic approach to people, process, and technology to build a sustainable advantage. Read more.

11:20am–12:00pm Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Location: 1E 12/13

Improve your data science ROI with a portfolio and risk management lens

Secondary topics: Culture and Organization

Brian Dalessandro (Capital One)

While data science value is well recognized within tech, experience across industries shows that the ability to realize and measure business impact is not universal. A core issue is that data science programs face unique risks many leaders aren’t trained to hedge against. Brian Dalessandro addresses these risks and advocates for new ways to think about and manage data science programs. Read more.

1:15pm–1:55pm Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Location: 1E 10/11

Executive Briefing: Top 10 big data blunders

Secondary topics: Culture and Organization, Data Management and Storage, Data, Analytics, and AI Architecture

Michael Stonebraker (Tamr)

As a steward for your enterprise’s data and digital transformation initiatives, you’re tasked with making the right choice. But before you can make those decisions, it’s important to understand what not to do when planning for your organization’s big data initiatives. Michael Stonebraker shares his top 10 big data blunders. Read more.

2:55pm–3:35pm Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Location: 1E 10/11

Executive Briefing: Understanding the cult of prediction

Secondary topics: Ethics

Farrah Bostic (The Difference Engine)

We're living in a culture obsessed with predictions. In politics and business, we collect data in service of the obsession. But our need for certainty and control leads some organizations to be duped by unproven technology or pseudoscience—often with unforeseen societal consequences. Farrah Bostic looks at historical—and sometimes funny—examples of sacrificing understanding for "data." Read more.

4:35pm–5:15pm Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Location: 1E 10/11

Executive Briefing: Data catalogs—Concepts, capabilities, and key platforms

Secondary topics: Data quality, data governance and data lineage

Andrew Brust (Blue Badge Insights | ZDNet)

Andrew Brust provides a primer on data catalogs and a review of the major vendors and platforms in the market. He examines the use of data catalogs with classic and newer data repositories, including data warehouses, data lakes, cloud object storage, and even software and applications. You'll learn about AI's role in the data catalog world and get an analysis of data catalog futures. Read more.

5:25pm–6:05pm Wednesday, September 25, 2019

Location: 1E 10/11

Executive Briefing: Making intelligent insights at the edge—The demise of big data?

Secondary topics: Data, Analytics, and AI Architecture, Privacy and Security

Alasdair Allan (Babilim Light Industries)

The arrival of a new generation of smart embedded hardware may cause the demise of large-scale data harvesting. In its place, smart devices will let us process data at the edge and extract insights without storing potentially privacy and GDPR infringing data. Join Alasdair Allan to learn why the current age where privacy is no longer "a social norm" may not long survive the coming of the IoT. Read more.

1:15pm–1:55pm Thursday, September 26, 2019

Location: 1E 10/11

Executive Briefing: Lessons from the front lines—Building a responsible AI/ML program in the enterprise

Secondary topics: Culture and Organization, Ethics

Keegan Hines (Capital One)

This talk will explore some of the philosophy around the concept of explaining a model given the colloquial definition is partially recursive. It will cover the lens banking regulation places on this philosophical basis and expand into techniques used for these well governed aspects. Read more.

1:15pm–1:55pm Thursday, September 26, 2019

Location: 1E 14

Communication breakdown: Facing machine learning’s all-too-human failure

James Kotecki (Infinia ML)

Miscommunication between business leaders and technical experts can doom even the best data science project. Don’t let it drive you insane! In this session, we’ll dissect many flavors of communication failure, from goal misalignment to technical misunderstanding. Then, we’ll explore practical ways to bridge these gaps. Read more.

4:35pm–5:15pm Thursday, September 26, 2019

Location: 1E 10/11

Executive Briefing: What it takes to use machine learning in fast data pipelines

Secondary topics: Data, Analytics, and AI Architecture, Streaming and IoT

Dean Wampler (Anyscale)

Dean Wampler dives into how (and why) to integrate ML into production streaming data pipelines and to serve results quickly; how to bridge data science and production environments with different tools, techniques, and requirements; how to build reliable and scalable long-running services; and how to update ML models without downtime. Read more.

4:35pm–5:15pm Thursday, September 26, 2019

Location: 1E 14

Executive Briefing: Big data in the era of heavy worldwide privacy regulations

Secondary topics: Privacy and Security

Mark Donsky (Okera)

California is following the EU's GDPR with the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) in 2020. Penalties for non-compliance, but many companies aren't prepared for this strict regulation. This session will explore the capabilities your data environment needs in order to simplify CCPA and GDPR compliance, as well as other regulations. Read more.