NUS Business Analytics Centre Hosts Large Scale Symposium Online, Drawing Hundreds Of Industry Leading Business Analytics Enthusiasts and Students
30 September 2020
For Business Analytics enthusiasts, there is nothing more valuable than learning from some of the best practices and ongoing trends and developments across industries in a room filled with people that are passionate, and deeply knowledgeable about the topic.
The National University of Singapore Business Analytics Centre hosted the Business Analytics Centre Symposium 2020, previously known as Business Analytics Technical Evening. It is an annual event that brings together like-minded people with a strong interest in relevant fields of Business Analytics (BA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, this year’s symposium was brought online instead. “Given the unprecedented situation this year, we took the event online instead of cancelling it entirely as we believe the work that our students did over the last 3 to 6 months will bring about new insights for businesses. We opted for the parallel session format to accommodate as many students as we could and also to make the best use of all participants’ time who put aside personal time to join us on a Saturday,” said Associate Professor James Pang, Co-Director of NUS Business Analytics Centre.
During the event, the students presented their works of labour from their capstone internship, where they worked on used cases, proof of concept and real business problems. They also picked up useful skill sets such as managing stakeholders and working with limited resources. In the course of completing their project, many expressed gratitude towards their internship supervisor, academic supervisor and fellow colleagues and classmates for the support in helping them overcome these challenges.
“I find this event very interesting and well managed. The sessions by the speakers are very engaging! I like the interactive platform and of course the content which I also enjoy listening to,” shared Ms Marina Yow, Director, Systems GTM, Oracle.
“It was a pleasure to participate. I really enjoyed hearing the diverse strategies that the students used in innovative ways. There are a number of things I learned as well and shows how important it is to stay in touch with the latest developments in our field.” quoted Mr Andrew Harmstone, senior portfolio manager in the Global Multi-Asset team, Head of Global Balanced Risk Control (GBaR) strategy, Morgan Stanley.
Despite migrating to an online platform for the first time, the event was an enriching one, with participants from the symposium having access to more than 80 projects. During the event, two concurrent sessions run in tandem. While students are presenting projects related to Financial and Risk Analytics in the first session, an ongoing session is happening in a separate room, where students have a discussion on Healthcare Analytics.
The symposium, which attracted hundreds of industry leading practitioners, academic researchers and students yearly, showcases some of the best business analytics projects the school has to offer. These projects feature challenging real-world analytics using case studies from different industries, such as finance, healthcare, IT, hospitality, manufacturing and more.
The event started off with an opening from Mr Ian Wilson, Chairman of NUS Business Analytics Centre Advisory Board, Advisor and Mentor, Singapore Tourism Board, Former Senior Vice President of Non-Gaming Operations at Marina Bay Sands who shared how business analytics has never been more important in the storm of change today and in businesses’ transformation to move from being constrained by their traditional industries to becoming a data company.
This was followed by a short address from the Deans of NUS Business School and School of Computing: Professor Andrew Rose who gave credits to the industry partners for their great support in offering placements for students’ internship and Professor Mohan Kankanhalli who shared how the success of the multidisciplinary Masters of Science in Business Analytics programme has led to the conception of other programmes and initiatives.
Associate Professor James Pang, Co-Director of NUS Business Analytics Centre also congratulated all students on their hard work as well as showed his appreciation to everyone who made this event possible.
Following the opening, the event starts off with a deep dive into different areas including Financial & Risk Analytics, Healthcare Analytics, E-Commerce Analytics, Consumer Analytics, Unstructured Data Analytics, Big Data Analytics and Supply Chain Analytics and Smart Operations, where students present insightful projects across various industries.
With more than 80 projects to consider, the competition was intense. After much deliberation, 7 winners were selected to receive the Outstanding Capstone Project Award. The decision to award 2 more instead of the usual 5 came about after the judges agreed how the students have persevered to see to the end of their project despite challenges faced during the pandemic. The winners were Chen Keru, Jonathan Simon Wagner, Li Feng Zi, Lin Du, Liu Tong, Shi Hao Hui and Song Zhen Feng. Each winner will receive a trophy and cash prize money of $500.
For more information on the winners’ presentations and other exciting moments during NUS Business Analytics Centre Symposium 2020, simply register for a login account at https://nusbacs2020.hubilo.com/community/#/agenda to access the site.