Co-founder / Managing Director @ CLEVER°FRANKE | The Netherlands
Co-founder / Managing Director @ CLEVER°FRANKE | The Netherlands
Gert Franke co-founded CLEVER°FRANKE together with Thomas Clever in 2008 after graduating from the Utrecht School of the Arts where they met each other. CLEVER°FRANKE has since gone on to become a leading data design and technology company focusing on data visualization and digital products, working with the likes of Google, Warner Music Group, The New York Times, Cisco, Wired and Bloomberg Markets. In 2016, CLEVER°FRANKE expanded to Chicago where they opened a satellite office.
Growing as a designer
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Co-Founder & CEO @ Intrro | UK
Co-Founder & CEO @ Intrro | UK
Read Law and then IR at Kings College, London. Started as an analyst, then consultant in the Oil & Gas industry moving to Abu Dhabi in 2015, then managing several countries for The Adecco Group in MENA. During his time at Adecco he became obsessed with the problem of hiring in technology companies and co-founded Intrro with Neel Shah.
Intro2Intrro: lessons learned helping the fastest growing technology companies on the planet hire from recommendations
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Senior data engineer @ Delivery Hero | Germany
Senior data engineer @ Delivery Hero | Germany
Senior data engineer at Delivery Hero, Germany . In his current role, Devendra is responsible for taking recommendation systems to production scale at Delivery hero. In the past, he worked on building technologies in hadoop eco-system. He is passionate about spreading the knowledge and exchanging the ideas.
Serving personalised recommendations at scale in multi-vendor marketplace
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Statistician, Researcher, Data scientist @ University of Florida | USA
Statistician, Researcher, Data scientist @ University of Florida | USA
Dr. Rocío Joo is a movement statistician and a statistician on the move.
She is a postdoctoral associate researcher at University of Florida (USA) focusing on movement ecology, particularly on two dimensions: statistical methods for the analysis of trajectories of animals and human predators (i.e. fishers), and text mining of the scientific literature (e.g. NLP) to reveal patterns in past and current research.
She will soon start working for Global Fishing Watch investigating suspicious activities of vessels at sea.
She is also a global coordinator in the organizing team of the useR!2021 conference.
Hidden topics in documents and other text analyses in R
16 Dec, Day 2, 17:00 - 18:30
Co-founder @ AimHub | Armenia
Co-founder @ AimHub | Armenia
Introduction to Aim: how to record and compare 100s of AI experiments in minutes
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Fellow @ Prague Civil Society Centre | Ukraine
Fellow @ Prague Civil Society Centre | Ukraine
Tetyana is an elections and civil society development specialist and a researcher of technology’s impact on democracy. She has just completed a Fellowship at the Prague Civil Society Centre, where she investigated the use of personal data in elections. Prior to that, Tetyana has worked with NGOs in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and served as a Legislative Education and Practice Program Fellow with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, DC. Tetyana holds a M.A. in Eastern European Studies from the Free University of Berlin and a B.A. in Business Administration from the International Christian University-Kyiv.
Using Personal Data in Ukrainian Elections
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Distinguished Engineer @ IBM | US
Distinguished Engineer @ IBM | US
Trinette Brownhill is Distinguished Engineer at IBM, leading cloud platform and cognitive solutions company. Trinette is a big data lover. She knows how to find and leverage data to transform businesses. This includes unlocking data and analytics to continually evolve evidence-based decision-making; personalizing services and improve experience which are increasingly more interactive and engaging; and finding insights, connections, and contextual understanding of the vast amounts of information.
End to end application in jupyterlab from data pipeline to model execution and visualization (Workshop, 60 min.)
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Compliance Investigator / AML Trainer @ Revolut | Poland
Compliance Investigator / AML Trainer @ Revolut | Poland
Anahit Karapetyan's career started in the banking industry. She is specialized in customer due diligence and different aspects of compliance, currently working as a financial crime compliance investigator and anti-money laundering trainer.
Data Compliance
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Analyst @ Tactical Tech | Germany
Analyst @ Tactical Tech | Germany
Wael Eskandar is an independent journalist and creative technologist. He has written for Ahram Online, Egypt Independent, Counterpunch, and Jadaliyya, among others. Since 2018 Wael has been working as an analyst on Exposing the Invisible a programme of work by Berlin-based Tactical Tech, which tells the story of released data by exploring the different techniques, tools and methods along with the individual practices of those working at the new frontiers of investigation.
Deep digging online
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Evidence behind the data - metadata exploration
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Director of Engineering @ MaxinAI, Associate Professor @ Ilia State University | Georgia
Director of Engineering @ MaxinAI, Associate Professor @ Ilia State University | Georgia
Time Series Data Analysis
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Machine Learning Engineer @ MaxinAI | Georgia
Machine Learning Engineer @ MaxinAI | Georgia
Time Series Data Analysis
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Psychologist, Researcher, Co-organizer @ R-Ladies Freiburg | Germany
Psychologist, Researcher, Co-organizer @ R-Ladies Freiburg | Germany
Dr. Divya Seernani is a psychologist and researcher specializing in neurodevelopmental disorders such as Autism and ADHD. With a bachelors degree from Mumbai University, India, masters from Bangor University, U.K. and PhD from University of Freiburg, Germany, she enjoys intercultural and interdisciplinary work. Her research focuses on cognitive biomarkers, and she is an expert in eye-tracking technologies with multiple publications to her name. She is also an organizer for R-Ladies Freiburg and engages actively in teaching, diversity building activities and science communication.
Eye-Tracking Data: What, How and Why?
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Business Development @ TESOBE | Germany
Business Development @ TESOBE | Germany
Luca is leading enterprise sales at TESOBE where he supports financial institutions to engineer Open APIs business models from a technical and business perspective. He holds a Master degree in Financial Engineering at the Sorbonne University. He is particularly interested in digital platform business models applied to financing use cases for their ability to create capital and well-being for end-users. Before joining TESOBE, he was based in Frankfurt and helped kick start the European Central Bank transparency project “Loan-level Initiative”.
Why the world needs transparent banking
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Business Intelligence Manager @ GoCardless | UK
Business Intelligence Manager @ GoCardless | UK
Yulia is a Business Intelligence Manager at GoCardless, a fintech scaleup in London rethinking recurring payments. She is helping the organisation drive right decisions from data and help grow data maturity and insight culture. A data generalist with 9+ years in commercial analytics (finance, strategy, operations and marketing) in fast growing companies (Google, Gett, Active Network, AvadoLearning), prior to that she read Economics and Management at Cambridge University. Speak to her about building data teams and data products, and data driven organisations. In her spare time Yulia likes to hang off walls, run in the mud or practice capoeira.
Self service analytics for commercial success - lessons from a fintech scaleup
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Founder and CEO @ Centigen Soft | UK
Founder and CEO @ Centigen Soft | UK
Berdia is Founder and CEO at Centigen Soft, London based IT consultancy and software development company. Berdia graduated from UEL with MSc IT degree in London and later studied FinTech at University of Oxford, Said Business School.
He is a huge FinTech enthusiast who strongly believes that it’s not the wealthiest of the companies that survive the current technology revolution but ones who are most responsive to change.
Berdia is also a co-founder of Apollo 11, a software development company and Artisio, a new name in the auction technology industry with its SaaS based software product.
Berdia possesses an extensive knowledge of innovation and entrepreneurship in FinTech. His current focus is on Blockchain and AI Deep Learning/Neural Networks.
FinTech-disruptive innovation in banking and beyond
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Designer, Artist, Author | UK
Designer, Artist, Author | UK
Stefanie Posavec is a designer, artist, and author whose practice focuses on finding new, experimental approaches to communicating data and information. This work has been exhibited internationally at major galleries including the V&A, the Design Museum, Somerset House, and the Wellcome Collection (London), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), and MoMA (New York). Her work is also in the permanent collection of MoMA.
Her new book with Miriam Quick (I am a book. I am a portal to the universe.) is out now. She has also co-authored two books that emphasise a more personal approach to data: Dear Data and the journal Observe, Collect, Draw!
Everything is a variable: lessons from I am a Book
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Head of Growth @ Reworth | Mexico
Head of Growth @ Reworth | Mexico
Joaquin has more than 10 years experience creating, managing and developing marketing teams and strategies for brands such as Coca Cola, Aeroméxico, AB InBev, Nestlé, Domino's Pizza, Bayer, Cabify and Postmates. He's obsessed with developing ideas and designing products and experiences that improve people's lives. Joaquin brings empathy, a user centric approach and pragmatism to resolve any complex problem into an elegant solution. Right now his focus is on Reworth, a fintech startup that helps merchants increase visibility and sales.
How fintech will help small business come back after COVID-19
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Course leader on MA Data Visualisation @ London College of Communication | UK
Course leader on MA Data Visualisation @ London College of Communication | UK
Henrietta Ross is Course leader on MA Data Visualisation at London College of Communication part of University of the Arts London. MA Data Visualisation is a practice-led course where students research, interpret, critique and visualise data using a range of media, tools and techniques. The course has a particular emphasis on the application and interrogation of art and design approaches to working with data and visualisation: combining a dual interest in creative and critical practice. Henrietta has also had a professional practice in visual communications and graphic design with an emphasis on work for public sector organisations.
Inter-disciplinarity and collaboration in data visualisation and information design
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Co-founder @ RiskTech 4 FinTech | UK
Co-founder @ RiskTech 4 FinTech | UK
Varlam Ebanoidze is a Data Obsessed Operational and Digital Risk Manager - passionate about the Strategic Transformation of Risk Management to fit the new paradigm of 'OpenFinance'.
He holds a Master’s degree from London Business School specialized in Strategy and Leadership, combined with the domain experience in Risk, Compliance and Cyber.
Risk Management in Open Finance Era
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Project Lead @ Tactical Tech | Germany
Project Lead @ Tactical Tech | Germany
Laura is a reporter and researcher with experience in investigating companies, tracing money flows and mapping business connections. She is the Project Lead for Exposing the Invisible - The Kit is a Tactical Tech project and collaborative resource that makes investigative techniques and tools used by experienced investigators more accessible to people and communities who feel motivated to start their own investigations, collect and verify information, build evidence and create a better understanding of issues without losing sight of ethical or safety considerations.
Deep digging online
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Evidence behind the data - metadata exploration
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
CEO @ faire.ai | Germany
CEO @ faire.ai | Germany
Gianluigi Davassi is the CEO of faire.ai. Right after graduating in Computer Engineering in Italy, he moved to London for several years where he shaped his skills as a software engineer until he moved to Germany in 2014 in Berlin where he entered the fintech domain as Tech Lead of the core banking system of the challenger bank N26. He specialised himself on the creation of tech platforms for fintech products and the management and reconciliation of payments. Later he gathered experience in creating platforms for corporate banking in Finleap (KYB, credit, insurance) until he founded a retail bank in Mexico (Klar) dedicated to consumer credit. After these experiences, Gianluigi went back to Italy to found his own company: faire.ai fintech specialized in consumer credit automation that leverages open banking (PSD2) as the data source and using machine learning and AI to estimate consumers' risk models.
Credit automation through open banking and Artificial Intelligence
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Product Analyst @ TransferWise | Estonia
Product Analyst @ TransferWise | Estonia
Salome is a product analyst in Europe’s one of the most successful Fintech startups - TransferWise. As a member of the product security team she is working on analysing customers’ login and onboarding experience and making sure that legitimate users have a seamless journey with strong but frictionless security measures. Salome is passionate about understanding and solving customers’ problems by munging the data and building the story around it. Salome has a background of working in different domains such as digital marketing, smart cities and agriculture. She holds Master's Degrees in Innovation and Technology management from University of Tartu and International Business from Tbilisi State University.
What did customers teach me about data
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Data Journalist, Researcher, Author | UK
Data Journalist, Researcher, Author | UK
Miriam Quick is a data journalist, researcher and author who explores novel ways of communicating data.
She has written data stories for the BBC, worked as a researcher for Information is Beautiful and the New York Times and co-created artworks that represent data through images, sculpture and sound. These have been exhibited at museums and galleries including the Wellcome Collection, National Maritime Museum and Southbank Centre (London).
Her first book, I am a book. I am a portal to the universe., co-authored with Stefanie Posavec, was published in September 2020. She is currently working with Duncan Geere on a data sonification podcast, Loud Numbers, to launch in early 2021.
Everything is a variable: lessons from I am a Book
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Regional Director @ UN WOMEN | Canada
Regional Director @ UN WOMEN | Canada
Alia El-Yassir has been working with UN Women since 1997. Prior to assuming her role as Regional Director (Representative to Turkey; Europe and Central Asia Regional Office), she worked with UN Women as Deputy Regional Director and as country-level Representative. In these roles, she has engaged
in several inter-governmental fora, various coordination mechanisms, as well as complex programmes and projects for tackling gender equality and women’s empowerment.
Before joining UN Women, she briefly worked with UNDP and has work experience in the science/education field. Over the years, Alia has also volunteered with a number of women’s and human rights NGOs. She graduated with a BSc degree from McGill
University and pursued post-graduate studies in Education and Gender/Feminism, attaining an MSc degree in Desert Studies from Ben Gurion University of the Negev.
Importance of Gender Data before, during, and after Covid-19
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Data Journalist | Brazil
Data Journalist | Brazil
Rodrigo Menegat is a journalist and former math-hater who fell in love with data analysis and visualization. He worked for two years as a visual journalist at the infographics desk in Estadão, one of the major newspapers in Brazil. Now, he works as a freelancer developing projects that bridge journalism, design and computation.
Data against denial reporting on Covid-19 in Brazil
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Data Strategist @ IBM | Italy / UK
Data Strategist @ IBM | Italy / UK
Mara Pometti is a data strategist at IBM. She uses design to define AI business solutions and reveal overlooked insights hidden in companies’ data. Mara finds herself at the intersection of the technical and business realms, acting as a translator who bridges these two worlds through data design.
Throughout her journey, she has been adopting design as an approach to explore data and craft it into new content, such as AI tools, data-driven strategies, or visual narratives showing the business impact of AI and Machine Learning models.
As a polymath sitting at the intersection of data science, journalism, and design, Mara is pursuing a profession as a data content strategist, which aims to bring data strategy, design, and storytelling in the context of AI.
Bridging the gaps: growing a data storytelling culture into Data Science teams
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Deep Learning Educator @ Weights & Biases | USA
Deep Learning Educator @ Weights & Biases | USA
Charles Frye is a Deep Learning Educator at Weights & Biases. He completed his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 2020, working in the Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience. Weights & Biases is a San Francisco-based start-up founded in 2017 with the mission to build a high-quality toolkit for reproducible ML research.
Tracking, Reproducing, and Collaborating on ML Pipelines with Weights & Biases (Workshop, 45 minutes)
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Senior Manager @ Open Contracting Partnership | Ukraine
Senior Manager @ Open Contracting Partnership | Ukraine
Before joining the Open Contracting Partnership, Viktor was acting CEO at SOE Medical Procurement of Ukraine – the central purchasing body set up by the Ministry of Health for medical public procurement. Between 2015-2018 he was a Program Director at Transparency International Ukraine. His portfolio included five significant initiatives – ProZorro, ProZorro.Sale systems development, DOZORRO community building, e-Health system development, and Construction Sector Transparency Initiative implementation. He headed the procurement risk assessment division in one of the biggest agro-holdings of Ukraine and worked in the Ministry of Infrastructure.
Viktor has a Master’s degree in international economy from Kyiv National Economic University and studied organizational behavior and intercultural marketing at the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien in Austria.
Viral procurement - How contracting data can help to fight and recover from the COVID-19 (Workshop)
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
McConnell Foundation Professor of Practice | Canada
McConnell Foundation Professor of Practice | Canada
Ana is a researcher, advisor, and facilitator who works on a more critical and publicly accountable use of data and technology. As the McConnell Foundation Professor of Practice at McGill University, Ana is examining the funding landscape of artificial intelligence in Canada to better understand the economic, political, and social implications of this technology. During her time at the World Wide Web Foundation, Ana led research on the implementation and impact of open government data in 115 countries with the Open Data Barometer, co-chaired the Measurement and Accountability Group of the international Open Data Charter, and led gender equality research advocacy with the Women's Rights Online program.
Towards public accountability in funding AI
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Generative Artist & Information Designer | Sweden
Generative Artist & Information Designer | Sweden
Duncan Geere is a generative artist and information designer interested in climate and the environment. Based in Gothenburg, Sweden, he works with organisations like Information is Beautiful, Project Drawdown, Wired UK, and Nesta to communicate complex, nuanced information to a wider audience.
Creating Data Art With p5.js (Workshop, 120 min)
16 Dec, Day 2, 17:00 - 18:30
Independent Humanitarian Consultant | Lebanon
Independent Humanitarian Consultant | Lebanon
Guido is an Independent Humanitarian Consultant and has more than 10 years of professional experience as a humanitarian information manager with multiple UN, NGO and International Organisations at the field and HQ levels. Currently, he is the Global Advisor for Information Management and Business Development for iMMAP.
Guido is an Internationally recognised expert in the fields of Emergency Needs Assessment, Analysis, Information Management, Data Visualisation and Humanitarian Project Management.
Throughout his career, he has been deployed to several humanitarian large scale operations and has been on more than 30 field support missions.
In 2020, he has been the project manager of the DEEP Governance Board and a Mentor at the ACAPS Humanitarian Analysis Programme.
Guido has contributed to numerous reports and publications and is the co-author of an IFRC study on aerial assessments named “Images from Above” and has co-authored the IFRC World Disasters Report 2020.
How to process Secondary Data Analysis in the Humanitarian Sector using DEEP (Workshop, 60 min.)
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Associate Professor @ Emory University | USA
Associate Professor @ Emory University | USA
Lauren Klein is an associate professor in the departments of English and Quantitative Theory & Methods at Emory University, where she also directs the Digital Humanities Lab. Before moving to Emory, she taught in the School of Literature, Media, and Communication at Georgia Tech. Klein works at the intersection of digital humanities, data science, and early American literature, with a research focus on issues of gender and race. She has designed platforms for exploring the contents of historical newspapers, modeled the invisible labor of women abolitionists, and recreated forgotten visualization schemes with fabric and addressable LEDs. In 2017, she was named one of the “rising stars in digital humanities” by Inside Higher Ed. She is the author of An Archive of Taste: Race and Eating in the Early United States (University of Minnesota Press, 2020) and, with Catherine D’Ignazio, Data Feminism (MIT Press, 2020). With Matthew K. Gold, she edits Debates in the Digital Humanities, a hybrid print-digital publication stream that explores debates in the field as they emerge. Her current project, Data by Design: An Interactive History of Data Visualization, 1786-1900, was recently funded by an NEH-Mellon Fellowship for Digital Publication.
Data Feminism
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Strategy Advisor @ Step Up Consulting | Philippines
Strategy Advisor @ Step Up Consulting | Philippines
Michael Canares has proven expertise in designing and implementing data for development projects to promote transparency and accountability in governance, increase citizen participation in key issues affecting their lives, and improve the delivery of public services. From 2015 to 2019, he was the Senior Research Manager for digital citizenship at World Wide Web Foundation’s. Currently, he is Strategy Advisor at Step Up Consulting and has advised several organizations on the use of data for development initiatives globally.
Data Empowerment (Workshop, 60 minutes)
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Adjunct Assistant Professor @ Columbia University | USA
Adjunct Assistant Professor @ Columbia University | USA
Denise Ajiri is an award winning Iranian Data & Investigative journalist based in New York. She is an Adjunct Associate Research Scholar and Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism.
Denise specializes in political and economic analysis of Iran and the broader Middle East. She has a deep background in investigating corruption. Her work has been published in various places in English and Persian including The Guardian, France 24 and The Chritsitan Science Monitor.
Cross-border journalism: doing data and investigation in closed societies (Workshop, 60 min.)
16 Dec, Day 2, 17:00 - 18:30
Head of Actuarial and Analytics @ Grant Thornton Ireland | Ireland
Head of Actuarial and Analytics @ Grant Thornton Ireland | Ireland
Pedro Écija Serrano is a qualified actuary with a background in statistics and operations research. He has over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry working in a number of technical roles across Spain, UK and Ireland. Pedro is the Head of Actuarial and Analytics at Grant Thornton Ireland and is a member of the Experts Group in Digital Ethics that provides advice to the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) on ethical topics for AI in insurance.
High Level Introduction to Trustworthy AI
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Head of AI + Automation Lab @ German Public Broadcaster | Germany
Head of AI + Automation Lab @ German Public Broadcaster | Germany
Uli Köppen is up for all things journalism, automation, investigation with algorithms and digital strategy. She had the chance to found two teams together with amazing people: BR Data and the new AI + Automation Lab at German Public Broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk. She’s thrilled to be working with both teams of journalists, coders and designers specializing in investigative data stories, interactive storytelling and experimentation with new research methods such as bots and machine learning. As a Nieman Fellow 2019 she spent an academic year at Harvard and MIT and has won several awards together with her colleagues.
Using AI And Automation For Journalism
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Data Scientist @ Bank of Georgia | Georgia
Data Scientist @ Bank of Georgia | Georgia
Nikoloz is a data scientist and practitioner with economic background. He
studied Econometrics in TSU – Georgia and Data Science in Sapienza
University – Italy.
Nika’s main experience stems from finance industry. He worked as Data
Scientist at OPPA, Liberty Bank and recently joined the Bank of Georgia.
He specializes on study of customer behavior with traditional and novel data scientific methods.
Currently Nikoloz is focused on DL, NLP and DRL models for business use
cases at Bank of Georgia.
Python data visualization to accelerate data and business understanding
16 Dec, Day 2, 17:00 - 18:30
Data Scientist @ Bank of Georgia | Georgia
Data Scientist @ Bank of Georgia | Georgia
Gigia’s career as a data scientist started in his sophomore year at TSU - Georgia, when he joined SMART AtmoSim Lab as a researcher. Later, he participated as a Guest Scientist at Jülich Research Center - Germany, one of the largest interdisciplinary research centers in Europe. There he gained experience in parallel programming and had opportunity to work with a Supercomputer. Gigia has also Software Engineer experience with the big tech enterprise, Yelp. Gigia’s main interests encompass big data analytics, Geo-spatial intelligence as well as DRL and Generative Neural Networks.
Generative Adversarial Networks for Data Augmentation and Generation: Challenge or Opportunity for Business?
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Head of Data Research Lab @ Bank of Georgia | Georgia
Head of Data Research Lab @ Bank of Georgia | Georgia
Before joining the Bank of Georgia, Irakli worked as a data scientist at leading Czech-Belgian bank CSOB in Prague. He was in charge of predictive modeling, management information system development and building rules for credit decision engine. Irakli obtained his Master’s and PhD degrees in Economics from University of Turin, where he also worked as a research fellow. His interests in artificial intelligence development focus on deep fuzzy reinforcement learning, natural language processing and extensive family of cognitive computing platforms.
Georgian NLU – when giants ignore you!
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Head @ Council of Europe Office in Georgia | Georgia
Head @ Council of Europe Office in Georgia | Georgia
Natalia is a human rights lawyer who has been engaged promoting democracy, rule of law and international humanitarian law in Europe and Central Asia while working for Doctors without Borders, the Council of Europe, and OSCE.
As the role of European bureaucrat did not always satisfy Natalia’s curiosity about the world, she recently completed an MSc in Behavioural Science at LSE and now is applying her new-found skills in developing public policies such as fight against discrimination and gender-based violence.
She is currently the Head of the Council of Europe Office in Georgia.
Behaviourial Science for strengthening Human Rights
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Developer | UK
Developer | UK
Zdenek is a full-stack developer working at the intersection of data visualisation, data science, and AI. During his 10 years in the industry, he worked on online facebook games where you win tickets for a Rihanna gig, plywood robots that predict how you're gonna die and everything in between. Zdenek strives to make complex things simple and enjoys making data speak human, not computer.
Machine learning in Javascript (Workshop, 120 min.)
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Researcher @ Forensic Architecture | Canada
Researcher @ Forensic Architecture | Canada
Omar Ferwati is a researcher at Forensic Architecture, a research agency that uses architectural and spatial analysis together with open-source media to conduct human rights investigations.
Omar’s own research currently focuses on how civilians use architecture to survive urban warfare, particularly in Aleppo. He is contributing a chapter based on this work for a forthcoming book on reconstruction and violence.
Open Source Investigations for Human Rights Defenders (Workshop)
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Forensic Architecture: Evidence of Violence and Survival in Conflict
16 Dec, Day 2, 17:00 - 18:30
Founder @ The Good AI | France
Founder @ The Good AI | France
Caroline Lair is the founder of The Good AI, the first go-to resource platform to inform, educate, connect and promote professionals and organizations willing to use AI for Good and build responsible technologies.
She’s also the co-founder of Women in AI, an international community of 4000+ members, working toward a gender-inclusive AI.
Prior to this, Caroline did operate in various business positions, lately at Snips, building private by design AI Voice Assistant ( acquired by Sonos in November 2019) and at HCVC venture capital firm, as an investor and partner.
She’s a regular speaker and adviser on AI ethics topics. She was ranked « Top 50 Women Pioneers in Tech in France » in 2018.
Caroline holds two master's degrees in business (EM Lyon) and international relations (Lyon III).
12:30 - 13:00 - AI helping to strengthen democracy and civil rights
15 Dec, Day 1, 12:00 - 14:00
Head of AI and Robotics @ UN | The Netherlands
Head of AI and Robotics @ UN | The Netherlands
Irakli Beridze has initiated and managed the first United Nations Programme on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. He is finding synergies with traditional threats and risks as well as identifying solutions that AI can contribute to the achievement of the UN SDGs. He is advising governments and international organizations on numerous issues related to international security, scientific and technological developments, emerging technologies, innovation and disruptive potential of new technologies, particularly on the issue of crime prevention, criminal justice and security. Irakli is a recipient of recognition on the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the OPCW in 2013.
13:00 - 13:30 - AI and Crime
15 Dec, Day 1, 12:00 - 14:00
Sr. Program Manager @ Benetech | USA
Sr. Program Manager @ Benetech | USA
Shabnam Mojtahedi is a Sr. Program Manager in Benetech’s Human Rights Program, where she leads the effort to apply AI to support justice and accountability efforts in Syria and beyond. Shabnam is a lawyer specializing in legal reform and transitional justice in the Middle East and North Africa region. Prior to joining Benetech, Shabnam was the Legal and Strategy Analyst for the Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC) where she developed policies, reports, and methodologies for SJAC’s documentation, data analysis, and transitional justice work. At SJAC, she led efforts to ethically document cases of sexual and gender-based violence and assessed how new technologies and social media can assist in the documentation and analysis of human rights violations. Previously, Shabnam was an adjunct professor at Yeditepe University in Istanbul, teaching courses on international business law, US constitutional law, and legal writing, and for two years, Shabnam also worked for the Public International Law & Policy Group on issues of legal reform in post-conflict and transitional states, including Kenya, Syria, Egypt, and Libya. She holds a J.D. from American University’s Washington College of Law.
AI applications for Human Rights (Workshop, 45 min.)
16 Dec, Day 2, 17:00 - 18:30
Clinical Technology Lead @ Wellcome Trust | UK
Clinical Technology Lead @ Wellcome Trust | UK
Bilal is a practising physician whose research is focused on applications of data science and machine learning for health. He is also the clinical technology lead at the Wellcome Trust, where he supports funding activities around the digital tools that make research possible.
13:30 - 14:00 - Are we ready for the AI revolution in Health?
15 Dec, Day 1, 12:00 - 14:00
Human Rights Adviser @ ODIHR | Poland
Human Rights Adviser @ ODIHR | Poland
David Mark is a Human Rights Adviser the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE. He is a professional with more than 12 years’ experience in international human rights, policy-making, monitoring and capacity building. At ODIHR he is leading innovative technology solutions that support human rights defenders and works to leverage tech for human rights education.
Gamification of learning for Human Rights Defenders
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Co-founder & Product designer @ Symbolikon | Italy
Co-founder & Product designer @ Symbolikon | Italy
With 15 years multi-disciplinary design experience in digital creativity with high-profile clients and international teams, Michela brings to life vibrant digital interfaces and visual designs.
Michela is the creator and co-founder of Symbolikon Visual Library: a collection of symbols and fonts taken from historical, global civilizations, successfully overfunded through Kickstarter crowdfunding platform.
Symbolikon is a journey of discovery, taking users through the symbols and iconography of historical cultures, providing in-depth and meticulously researched information about meanings and origins.
From ancient symbology to modern visual communication
16 Dec, Day 2, 17:00 - 18:30
Consulting Data Journalist @ BBC England Data Unit. | MA Course Head in Data and Mobile Journalism @ Birmingham City University | UK
Consulting Data Journalist @ BBC England Data Unit. | MA Course Head in Data and Mobile Journalism @ Birmingham City University | UK
Paul works as a consulting data journalist with the BBC England Data Unit, and also runs the MA in Data Journalism and the MA Multiplatform and Mobile Journalism at Birmingham City University.
A journalist, writer and trainer, he has worked with news organisations including The Guardian, Telegraph, Mirror, Der Tagesspiegel and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, and his awards include the CNN MultiChoice Award for an investigation into people trafficking in football. He publishes the Online Journalism Blog, is the co-founder of the award-winning investigative journalism network HelpMeInvestigate.com, and has been listed on both Journalism.co.uk's list of leading innovators in media, and the US Poynter Institute's list of the 35 most influential people in social media.
7 angles for data stories (Workshop)
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Author, Visualization Strategist | Germany
Author, Visualization Strategist | Germany
Sandra Rendgen is an author and concept developer with a focus on data visualisation, interactive media and the history of infographics. She is the author of several books, most recently Taschen’s „History of Information Graphics“. As a visualisation strategist, she supports clients in communicating complex knowledge. “Complex,” as in fuzzy, overwhelming, abstract, multidimensional or just plain complicated.
VIZ IN THE WILD: What can we learn from the history of information visualisation?
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Data Visualization Engineer @ Airbnb | USA
Data Visualization Engineer @ Airbnb | USA
Krist is a data visualization engineer, front-end developer and innovator. He currently manages the Data Experience team at Airbnb, where his team applies data visualization, UI/UX design and engineering to improve how data scientists, engineers and others interact with complex data ecosystems.
Prior to Airbnb, he built visual analytics tools at Twitter and crafted storytelling visualizations on https://interactive.twitter.com. He also holds a PhD in Computer Science from University of Maryland. His passion in data visualization led to work in many areas ranging from business, medical, sports, to contemporary culture such as bubble tea and Game of Thrones.
What I tell myself before visualizing
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Visual Data Journalist @ Neue Zürcher Zeitung | Switzerland
Visual Data Journalist @ Neue Zürcher Zeitung | Switzerland
Adina Renner is a visual data journalist at Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) in Switzerland. At the intersection of data, design, and code, she creates stories that connect people and complex subject matters. Before joining the NZZ Visuals team, Adina worked as information design freelancer for clients in academia, NGOs, and government institutions. She holds a Master’s degree in Information Design from Aalto University.
Visual Revelation: Making Realities Visible in Data Journalism
15 Dec, Day 1, 15:00 - 16:30
Data Analyst @ iziwork | France
Data Analyst @ iziwork | France
Evelina Judeikyte works in data analytics and specialises in data visualisation design. She loves creating both data-driven business reports and custom-made creative visualisations. Guided by the principle “good design is as little design as possible”, her work is recognised to be clear and intuitive. Evelina is also active in the data visualisation community - she writes for Nightingale and co-hosts the Datavis Paris meetup.
Practicing the Craft: Data Visualisation Design Process (Workshop, 90 min.)
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
5 Lessons from Public Speaking to Improve Your Data Visualisations
16 Dec, Day 2, 17:00 - 18:30
Data Visualization Designer | Germany
Data Visualization Designer | Germany
Evelyn is a data visualization designer specialized in data products. She designs data visualizations that enable actionable insights and explain complex things in a way that the audience understands easily. Her projects are in a wide range of fields from data science, machine learning, robots and analytics to code, statistics, processes and user journeys.
With a background in media art, software development and data analytics, Evelyn has been in the visualization game since 2008, helping technology clients from many industries develop complex and innovative data products, such as control and decision systems, tools and dashboards.
Chart Doktor workshop: How to test the usefulness of any data visualization (90 min.)
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
Assistant Professor of Computer Science @ Boston College | USA
Assistant Professor of Computer Science @ Boston College | USA
Nam Wook Kim is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Boston College, where he studies human-computer interaction and data visualization. His research vision is to lower barriers for everyone to understand and communicate complex data. His work investigates innovative approaches to interact with data and has been recognized with awards from ACM CHI, ACM UIST, and Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards.
Prior to Boston College, he earned a Ph.D. from Harvard University and M.S from Stanford, and worked as a research engineer at Samsung and LG.
Tools for thought: reimagining the ways we create visualizations
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Data Artist | France
Data Artist | France
Dr. Kirell Benzi is a data artist, public speaker and researcher. His primary interests revolve around creating visual experiences that inspire, educate and empower large audiences using state-of-the-art technology.Through a hypnotic visual semantic, he works to show that algorithms have a soul; and that we can create emotions from complexity using methods which come straight from scientific research.
Kirell holds a Master in Communication Systems from ECE Paris and a Ph.D. in Data Science from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). He also teaches data visualization at several universities.
When Data Science And Art Collide
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Head of Visuals @ Neue Zürcher Zeitung | Switzerland
Head of Visuals @ Neue Zürcher Zeitung | Switzerland
Barnaby Skinner is the head of the NZZ Visuals department at Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) – the oldest Swiss newspaper, which today, counts over one million registered online readers. His team consists of data journalists, visual journalists, and developers who collaborate closely to create visual, data-driven stories. Before joining NZZ, he built the first team of data journalists and data scientists at the Swiss media company Tamedia. With over 20 years of experience at the forefront of digital transformation, Barnaby regularly speaks about the ongoing disruption in the news industry. He also teaches data literacy skills and has established various training programs for journalists, such as the data journalism diploma at the Swiss data journalism school (MAZ).
Getting started with Covid-19 data using Python (Workshop, 90 min.)
16 Dec, Day 2, 17:00 - 18:30
Co-Founder & Principal @ HealthDataViz | USA
Co-Founder & Principal @ HealthDataViz | USA
Kathy Rowell is a nationally recognized health, healthcare, and data visualization expert, lecturer, and author specializing in helping leading organizations analyze, design, and present
visual displays of data to inform decisions and stimulate effective action.
She’s the co-author of Visualizing Health and Healthcare Data, the only data viz book written by and for health and healthcare professionals. As Co-founder of HealthDataViz (HDV) she’s led innovative projects for leading organizations such as the New York City Dept. of Health and the World Health Organization.
A graduate of the Dartmouth Medical School, Kathy loves cruising the coast of Maine with her family on their boat “Visualize.”
Creating clear and compelling displays of health and healthcare data (Workshop, 120 min.)
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Data Visualization Designer | Canada
Data Visualization Designer | Canada
Jane is an independent Data Visualization Designer from Toronto, Canada. Jane designs learning experiences that are driven by user-centred design. Her work shows people how to think about something by compartmentalizing information. As an independent, Jane shares her journey and experiences navigating the business through her articles on the Nightingale publication and her newsletter: The Wanderings of a Dataviz Designer.
Designing Data Visualizations with the Tekken Community
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Founder & Chief Scientific Officer @ nference | USA
Founder & Chief Scientific Officer @ nference | USA
Venky is the Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of nference and Qrativ (a drug development JV between nference and Mayo Clinic). Previously, he led translational oncology modeling and simulation efforts at Vertex, and designed new genetic engineering tools with synthetic biology pioneer George Church at Harvard Medical School. Venky also developed a novel platform for network theory based in-silico Antibody Engineering at MIT, culminating in a pair of Clinical-stage broad-spectrum antibodies against Influenza (Flu) and Dengue viruses. At the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, he led a team of scientists that uncovered fundamental evolutionary constraints of hypermutative zoonotic infectious pathogens.
Transforming healthcare using AI
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Senior Customer Growth Manager @ UTRUST | Portugal
Senior Customer Growth Manager @ UTRUST | Portugal
Sales professional specialized in origination, prospecting and lead qualification. Economics background, developed experience in Growth Hacking, Business Intelligence and Data Visualisation.
The future of money & payments
15 Dec, Day 1, 18:00 - 19:30
Co-founder and Director @ ForSet, DataFest | Georgia
Co-founder and Director @ ForSet, DataFest | Georgia
Nino is co-founder and director at ForSet, a data communications organisation in Tbilisi. She was previously a data journalist and project coordinator at JumpStart Georgia, and holds a BA in Journalism and MA in Creative & Media Enterprises. Nino is passionate about connecting data enthusiasts from different backgrounds and sectors, and founded DataFest Tbilisi in 2017 - the first international data event in the Caucasus - to do just that.
Senior Data Journalist @ First Draft | UK
Senior Data Journalist @ First Draft | UK
Carlotta is a senior data journalist at First Draft, leading investigations into global information disorder and developing pioneer techniques to research disinformation. She specialises in data-driven stories, open-source investigations and interactive storytelling formats. She has previously worked with The Times’ data team and the Italian La Repubblica’s visual lab, producing investigations on climate change, mental health, migration, cybercrime and issues surrounding social justice. She has also written for several publications including The Guardian, the BBC, Al Jazeera, reporting from across Asia, Africa, Europe and South America.
How to use Crowdtangle and Python to scrape data and research disinformation trends on social media (Workshop)
16 Dec, Day 2, 14:00 - 16:00
Co-founder @ ScatterPie Analytics | India
Co-founder @ ScatterPie Analytics | India
Ashish is passionate about data visualization and is co-founder of ScatterPie Analytics. He also posts about all things around data on his blog DoingData. He loves to teach young professionals about how to learn data visualization and enhance their data skills.
Intro to Tableau
16 Dec, Day 2, 12:00 - 13:30
