This week on the Data Futurology podcast we speak to Sanchit Juneja, the Director of Data Science and Machine Learning at Booking.com. Having worked in roles across SE Asia and Africa before landing in his current role in the Netherlands, Juneja has a truly world view of the role of data in business, especially within the context of product development within large enterprises. One of the challenges that large enterprises face with product and data is the question of whether you should build or ...
Dec 14, 2022•35 min•Season 5Ep. 219
On the Data Futurology podcast this week we have AI expert and author, Cortnie Abercrombie. Abercrombie is the CEO of AI Truth, an organisation that empowers business leaders to leverage AI in an ethical and innovative manner. She is also the author of What You Don’t Know: AI’s Unseen Influence On Your Life And How To Take Back Control. We start the conversation on the podcast talking about the challenges that data scientists face with data governance, and the many challenging questions that com...
Dec 07, 2022•45 min•Season 5Ep. 218
AI is a powerful tool, and as enterprise and government find more sophisticated ways to leverage the technology, there will be untold benefits returned to customers. At the same time, the responsible use of AI is of significant concern to the global population, and people are watching how its use is regulated closely. On this week’s Data Futurology podcast, Felipe Flores presents an update on the status of regulation across Europe, China, and the US, and poses the question about whether AI regul...
Nov 30, 2022•16 min•Season 5Ep. 217
Today on the Data Futurology podcast, we have Ann Sebastian, Senior Data Scientist at Wesfarmers OneDigital, as a guest on the podcast. As Sebastian says, she is “in the trenches” building data science products. One of her key projects in recent years has been OnePass, a subscription service that provides free delivery and other services across a range of Australia’s top brands. “It’s an incredible experience to be part of a journey, developing an idea through to proof of concept through to prod...
Nov 23, 2022•36 min•Season 5Ep. 216
This week on the Data Futurology podcast, we have three special guests to share insights on how data works in retail settings. Nick Merry, the Head of Analytics at flybuys (Loyalty Pacific), Kathryn Gulifa, the Head of Data and Analytics at Catch, and Stuart Garland, the Director at Talent Insights Group, join us for a wide ranging and in-depth look into how analytics are changing and the impact this is having on teams. “The really good analysts that I see are the ones that are able to crystalis...
Nov 16, 2022•44 min•Season 5Ep. 215
This week on Data Futurology we answer a burning question that is asked in the data space a lot: just what makes a good data strategy? As we discuss, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to data strategy that will work for all organisations. This cannot be approached like a templated “best practice” to business. Instead, there are three factors to consider when devising the data strategy that will work for your business: 1) Defining where the organisation is on its journey today. How a busines...
Nov 09, 2022•16 min•Season 5Ep. 214
This week on the Data Futurology podcast, we have the special privilege to host Dr. David A. Bader, a Distinguished Professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, and the inaugural director of the Institute for Data Science there. Bader joins us on the podcast to discuss massive graph analytics, a topic that he is a recognised expert in and has recently published a book on . He and his team are currently working on a project that will allow anyone, via the Jupyter Notebook and Python, to l...
Nov 02, 2022•34 min•Season 5Ep. 213
The motor industry has always been right at the forefront of innovation, and this is also true when it comes to embracing machine learning and AI. This week’s guest on the Data Futurology podcast is Leonard Aukea, the Head of Machine Learning, Engineering & Operations at Volvo, who shares with us insights into what the global vehicle giant is doing to bring value to the operations chain across the company. For Aukea, it has been a story of establishing best processes across the organisation....
Oct 26, 2022•46 min•Season 5Ep. 212
In today’s episode, we have Romina Sharifpour, Machine Learning Specialist at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Operationalising machine learning models, particularly scaling MLOps capability across teams within an organisation is a difficult feat. Join Romina to find out how you can easily accelerate your MLOps journey using Amazon SageMaker Pipelines. You'll gain insights into how AWS customer Carsales keeps up with increased demand in building and productionising AI models, and their strategy to dem...
Oct 20, 2022•58 min•Season 5Ep. 211
This week on the Data Futurology podcast, we have the special privilege of talking to the top analytics leader in Australia, according to IAPA (the Institute of Analytics Professionals of Australia). Brad Petry, the Executive Director – Operations, Insights, and Digital Channels at the Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions in the Victorian Government, was awarded this accolade for his work in leveraging AI and machine learning to overcome biases in the recruitment process. He spends time on ...
Oct 12, 2022•38 min•Season 5Ep. 210
This week on the Data Futurology podcast, we talk transformation and the importance of having data engineers to guide the strategy and agenda. To provide expert insights into this topic, we have the pleasure of hosting Richard Glew, Chief Technology Officer, and Natalia Dronova, Senior Data Analyst from Aginic. Aginic is a consultancy that assists organisations with their transformation goals, providing expertise in analytics, agile, and the digital experience. Transformation remains a challengi...
Oct 05, 2022•43 min•Season 5Ep. 209
It’s safe to say that most people in data science want to do the right thing. However, AI ethics cannot just be an afterthought done in the service of regulatory obligations. It needs to be baked into the way the organisation looks at data, at every level. How organisations can achieve that is the focus of our latest podcast, with Natalie Rouse, General Manager of Eliiza and Brendan Nicholls, the Practice Lead, Machine Learning Engineering, joining us to discuss the topic. Eliiza is a data consu...
Sep 28, 2022•42 min•Season 5Ep. 208
Healthcare is an industry that stands to benefit a great deal from data and analytics. At the same time, the sensitivity of the data in the sector is extreme and how organisations manage that data is critical. Yalchin Oytam, the Head Of Clinical Insights And Analytics at South Eastern Sydney Local Health District (SESLHD) is right in the thick of the discussion. He joins us on the Data Futurology podcast to talk through both the challenge and opportunity. One of the big challenges that the Austr...
Sep 21, 2022•41 min•Season 5Ep. 207
Kevin Ross has had more than 20 years of experience in using data, science and analytics to lead decision-making. Now, as the CEO at Precision Driven Health, and Advisory Board Chair at the NAOI (Natural, Artificial and Organisational Intelligence) Institute, he is placed right at the heart of the data discussion in New Zealand. He joins us on the Data Futurology podcast this week to discuss the evolving role of data in healthcare, and how it has broadened to really start to embrace personalisat...
Sep 15, 2022•37 min•Season 5Ep. 206
NVIDIA is best known for its production of GPUs and APIs that enable high-performance computing, supercomputing, and power some of the most intense applications across the world. Unsurprisingly, the company is deeply involved in AI, and on this week’s podcast, the company’s VP of Solutions Architecture and Engineering, Marc Hamilton, joins us to share the company’s unique insights into the field. Hamilton explains how NVIDIA’s innovative AI Factory concept allows it to introduce efficiencies int...
Sep 13, 2022•40 min•Season 5Ep. 206
This week we are thrilled to welcome Harjot Singh, who had been the CDO of RAC in WA until very recently. Singh is a true expert of and champion for transformation in the workplace, and has deep insights on data strategy and data governance to share. “Data drives a digital transformation in any organisation.” Singh said. “Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon around digital transformation, but most organisations struggle to understand where to start. As Singh explains on the podcast, there is ...
Sep 07, 2022•30 min•Season 5Ep. 204
GEEQ (Geeks With EQ) is a non-for-profit with an important mission: helping women get into IT and boosting the diversity of IT companies in Australia. To this day less than 20 per cent of Australia’s IT workforce are women, and this has far-reading implications, from the bias that gets built into technology itself through to the depth of innovative thinking available in the space. The two founders of GEEQ, Azadeh Khojandi and Katrin Schmidt, join us on this special podcast to discuss the work th...
Aug 23, 2022•39 min•Season 5Ep. 203
Later this month, Nathan Steiner, the Director of Field Engineering, ANZ, at Databricks, will give a presentation at the Data Engineering Summit. There he will talk about the “habits” of data-driven organisations, and the importance of an open architecture that combines the best elements of data lakes and data warehouses. Steiner kindly appeared on this episode of the Data Futurology podcast to talk about this, and further discuss the Databricks vision for data-driven workspaces. “Historically, ...
Aug 18, 2022•46 min•Season 5Ep. 202
Graph databases are powerful tools in analytics, but they are an often-misunderstood innovation. As they hold the relationships between data as a priority, they are an invaluable tool for modern, heavily inter-connected datasets. In this episode of Data Futurology, we explore graph databases with Peter Kokinakos (pk), the COO of MIP. They have been conceptualised for around 18 years, but it is only now that the computing power has started to catch up to allow graph database projects to come to f...
Aug 10, 2022•41 min•Season 5Ep. 201
For our milestone 200th Data Futurology podcast, we have the immense fortune of being able to host Gina Papush, the Global Chief Data & Analytics Officer of wellness and insurance company, Cigna. Papush has a long history in data science, having been involved in modelling and coding from before the time where “data scientist” was a defined role. In the years since, she has observed that enterprises have become siloed across computer science, data science, and other roles, and that the next s...
Aug 03, 2022•42 min•Season 5Ep. 200
For the most innovative and forward-thinking organisations, the next frontier forward for data is focused on machine learning, and specifically the role that MLOps plays in driving outcomes. Questions that data leaders need to be asking themselves now include: What steps do organisations need to take to deliver ML maturity, how can they take the leap from experimentation to production, and how ML teams be effectively organised and motivated around this goal? To dive deeply into this critical dis...
Jul 27, 2022•46 min•Season 5Ep. 199
Online wagering is one of the most sophisticated and complex fields for data and analytics. This week on the Data Futurology podcast, Mia O’Dell, the GM of Data Science at Sportsbet, kicks thing off by explaining how the company brings together three separate data teams, across three lines of business, to achieve meaningful and collaborative data outcomes. Sportsbet is also growing its data practice and looking to nearly double its team sizes by the end of the year. O’Dell – who was also respons...
Jul 20, 2022•39 min•Season 5Ep. 198
On today’s podcast we have special guest, Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, the Director of the Curtin Institution For Computation, to discuss with us some of the bleeding edge ways that data is being leveraged in the academic space. For example, a new radio telescope being built in Australia and South Africa will give us new insights into the cosmos. It will also generate 160 terabytes of data per second; an eye-watering amount of data that poses unique challenges about how it’s utilised and managed. A...
Jul 13, 2022•41 min•Season 5Ep. 197
“Data engineers are like plumbers,” Edward Chenard, the Senior Director of Data Science and Analytics at Shipwell, said in this latest episode of the Data Futurology Podcast. By that, Chenard means that data scientists are excellent at analysing what’s coming through the proverbial pipes, but if the “pipes” break for even a couple of hours the costs can be in the millions of dollars, and so you want specialised data engineers operating in the background, maintaining the stack and being the unsun...
Jul 06, 2022•49 min•Season 5Ep. 195
From skills shortages to remote working, keeping data professionals happy and comfortable in their roles is a rapidly evolving challenge. This week on the podcast, Talent Insights Group Director, Ben Le Gassick, and Associate Director, Patrick Choy, are our special guests as we delve into the problems organisations face in attracting and retaining the best people. The talent shortage means that many employees feel overworked and overwhelmed. Meanwhile, while remote work has become standard and e...
Jun 30, 2022•52 min•Season 5Ep. 195
This special episode is a recording from a live webinar we ran back in February as part of our Future proofing your data platforms online event covering how to establish a best in class multi-cloud strategy. Felipe explored all aspects of a multi-cloud strategy, including simplifying your data architecture, regardless of whether your systems are running on-prem, in the cloud, or a combination of both and optimising your agility and efficiency across your cloud infrastructure. Stijn explains that...
Jun 22, 2022•37 min•Season 5Ep. 194
Australia’s CSIRO has always been a hotbed of innovation and technology creativity, which is why it is a special privilege to speak to Stela Solar, the Director of the CSIRO’s National Artificial Intelligence Centre on this week’s podcast. Solar, who spent over a decade working in global roles at Microsoft in the US prior to joining CSIRO in January, said that one of her key observations on coming to Australia is that we are enthusiastic adopters of technology – we’re a leading nation on cloud a...
Jun 14, 2022•40 min•Season 5Ep. 193
On this episode of the podcast, we have the privilege to speak to Michelle-Joy Low, Ph.D, the Head of Data & AI at Reece Group. Low talks us through how data is the foundation of the ongoing transformation of one of Australia’s most venerable retail brands, having celebrated 100 years in 2020. Low explains the importance of diversity in the workforce, and how it leads to better outcomes for the business and better outcomes for the customer. The tech space has been particularly good at recogn...
Jun 07, 2022•53 min•Season 5Ep. 192
In this second podcast with the visionary data scientist, entrepreneur and business leader, Sarah Dods, we dive into the details around product development and the role of data science. Across her career, from NICTA and CSIRO, through to AGL, Telstra Health, RMIT University and Gerson Lehrman, Sarah has had a long history in bringing innovation to market. One thing she says is that business leaders should not lose sight of how data science needs to work. It’s a team sport, in the same way that b...
May 31, 2022•33 min•Season 5Ep. 191
On this episode of the podcast, we are excited to speak to Sarah Dods, one of Australia’s top tech entrepreneurs, innovators, and company leaders. In a career that has spanned from public organisations like NICTA and CSIRO, to private companies as wide ranging as AGL, Telstra Health, RMIT University and Gerson Lehrman, Sarah has been at the forefront of bringing technology and ideas to market. As Sarah says, one of the big challenges with data science is articulating its value. Data science cost...
May 24, 2022•32 min•Season 5Ep. 190
