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This year’s edition of Business Analytics Centre Symposium (BACS) was incredibly special – the 2023 edition was the first face-to-face BACS since Covid-19, where BACS was held online from 2020 to 2022. Coincidentally, 2023 also marks the 10th year anniversary of NUS Business Analytics Centre and NUS Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA), highlighting the remarkable growth and achievements since the inception of the MSBA programme.
BACS is an annual event organised by NUS Business Analytics Centre that brings together like-minded people with a strong interest in relevant fields of Business Analytics (BA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). It also marks the culmination of NUS MSBA students’ journey, where they showcase the capstone projects that they have worked on with industrial partners in real business problems over the past few months.
Held on 28 September 2023 at the Sands Expo & Convention Centre, BACS 2023 was a spectacular event with nearly 500+ participants and a total of 94 capstone projects. The event commenced with Sol Kim, the emcee for BACS 2023 and a proud NUS MSBA alumnus, taking the stage. This was followed by an opening address from Mr. Ian Wilson, the Chairman of NUS BAC Advisory Board. Associate Professor James Pang, Co-Director of NUS BAC, then took the opportunity to reflect on the remarkable 10-year journey of NUS BAC and MSBA, leaving the audience inspired.
BACS 2023 buzzed with energy as industry partners, faculty, alumni, and students engaged face-to-face for the first time in three years. Our students showcased their outstanding projects, covering a wide range of areas like Finance & Risk Analytics, Consumer Analytics, Fraud Analytics, Healthcare Analytics, the ground-breaking Large Language Model (LLM), and much more!
Mr. Sameer Gupta, Group Chief Analytics Officer at DBS Bank and NUS BAC Advisory Board Member, shared that, “(I was) quite impressed with first, the breadth of industries. Second, the ideas, problems and solution sets are very diverse and innovative. Third, the quality of students – they had the confidence and ability to articulate their outcomes.”
As an MSBA alumni who graduated in 2017, Ravi Bobbe, Senior Manager (Data Science) at Kenvue, shared that “I can’t believe how far we have come and how the quality and number of students have grown.” He also recognised how the NUS MSBA programme has constantly adapted to current challenges, with a focus on both business and technical skills coming from NUS Business School and NUS School of Computing.
Chiang Yoke Fun, Head of Singapore and Enterprise Digital Business, Digital Systems and Cyber and Senior Vice President, AI, Analytics and Sensemaking of ST Engineering, has seen how the programme transformed in the last 5 years. She shared that “The complexity of the problem statements has improved a lot and are very reflective of the current business situation.”
With all the exciting capstone projects this year, the competition for the Outstanding Capstone Project Award was so intense that the judges could not settle for just 5 winners after intense deliberation. For BACS 2023, we are thrilled to announce that we have not 5, but 6 exceptional winners!
Let’s give a thunderous round of applause to our 6 extraordinary winners (in alphabetical order):
Sameer Gupta, Group Chief Analytics Officer at DBS Bank, represented the NUS MSBA Advisory Board to present each award winner with a crystal trophy. Winners will also receive a cash prize of $500 each.
Samin Batra felt that his project content of cutting-edge technology of large language models, and his presentation helped him stand out among his peers. “This project was very technically challenging for me as this is a very new field. Interacting with stakeholders and this being a new area of development really helped me develop in work and personally,” said Samin.
After receiving the news of her win, Grace Sher Huey Chearles was happy and grateful to all her academic and industry supervisors for all the help and support provided. She also shared that “This project really helped to increase my technical skills and communication skills with the different business teams.”
After experiencing BACS 2023, Susmita Goswami, Current AY23/24 MSBA Student, found the event to be very fabulous. She shared that “My seniors have done great projects, so I’m very impressed and inspired.”
BACS 2023 was an unforgettable gathering of brilliant minds and innovative ideas, and a true testament to the power of collaboration, innovation, and determination. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to all participants, attendees, and supporters of BACS 2023. Let’s keep the momentum going and continue to push the boundaries of business analytics!
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