If you missed the first student-led conference at the Business School, or if you just want to relive the day, this post is definitely for you. Here I have put together some snapshots from the day and a selection of excellent quotes delivered by the speakers.
Rashid Mansoor (Hadean) delivered the probably most remembered metaphor of the conference when he compared Big Data with teenage sex to highlight the many misconceptions regarding what Big Data actually is.
Big Data is like teenage sex; everyone talks about it, everyone thinks that everyone else is doing it, but no one actually knows how to do it
Alwin Magimay (McKinsey) delivered this quote when he was talking about the new age of Big Data and how businesses face a massive challenge in making sense of this new business climate and all the data they collect.
We are currently in the wild wild west of Big Data
Giles Pavey (Dunnhumby) also provided an ethical dimension to the discussion of Big Data when discussing the issues of privacy and integrity when using vast amounts of data about people.
Even if something is technologically possible, that doesn’t mean you should do it
“We wanted to make it just as easy for companies to handle Big Data, as it is handling small data” – Rashid Mansoor (Hadean) shared the vision of his start-up and the link he sees between entrepreneurship and the opportunities of Big Data.
Ray Eitel-Porter (Accenture) highlighted the need to categorise data and whether it is relevant for the business’s objectives or not.
It’s key to focus on data relevance
“Big Data can disrupt any value chain” – Alwin Magimay (McKinsey) said about the disruptive power of Big Data and how every business need to be wary of its potential.
“We put Watson through medical school in just a couple of months” – David Cole (IBM Watson) mentioned this when talking about the true potential of artificial intelligence and what it is already capable of. His keynote really had the audience mesmerised.
Finally, Noa Tamir (King) talked about how players are categorised based on how they play the game, with the help of data science. She also emphasised something that most people at Imperial are already aware of; that fun really needs science!
For more photos and quotes from the day, check out the hashtag #IBBDDU on Twitter. There are also a few articles about the conference, for example this one that is worth checking out.
