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Big Data. Big Deal?

Speakers

  • Founder and Executive Director, DataKind
    Jake Porway is a machine learning and technology enthusiast who loves nothing more than seeing good values in data. He is the founder and executive director of DataKind, an organization that brings together leading data scientists with high impact social organizations to better collect, analyze, and visualize data in the service of humanity. Jake was most recently the data scientist in the New York Times R&D lab and remains an active member of the data science community, bringing his technical experience from his past work with groups like NASA, DARPA, Google, and Bell Labs to bear on the social sector. Jake’s work has been featured in leading academic journals and conferences (PAMI, ICCV), the Guardian, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review. He has been honored as a 2011 PopTech Social Innovation Fellow and a 2012 National Geographic Emerging Explorer. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Columbia University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Statistics from UCLA.
  • Co-Founder, The Office for Creative Research
    Jer Thorp is an artist and educator from Vancouver, Canada, currently living in New York. From a background in genetics, his digital art practice explores the many-folded boundaries between science, data, art and culture. He is an adjunct Professor in NYU’s ITP programme and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Design Innovation. He is Co-Founder of The Office For Creative Research, exploring new modes of data engagement. From 2010-2012, Jer was the Data Artist in Residence at The New York Times.
  • Director, UN Global Pulse, United Nations
    Robert Kirkpatrick is Director of UN Global Pulse, an initiative of the Secretary-General which harnesses Big Data and real-time analytics for global development and crisis resilience. He was the Founding CTO of the Silicon Valley global health and disaster technology non-profit organisation InSTEDD and Co-Founder of Microsoft Humanitarian Systems. Robert has spent more than15 years developing solutions with a focus on organisational change. He has done fieldwork in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Uganda, Indonesia, Cambodia, and post-Katrina New Orleans.
  • Founder and CEO, ClearStory Data
    Sharmila Shahani-Mulligan is Founder and CEO of ClearStory Data, which helps businesses broaden insights by interactively exploring and analysing Big Data from a combination of sources. Prior to ClearStory, Sharmila was EVP at Aster Data and CMO within HP Software where she was responsible for $3+ billion software products portfolio. Prior to HP, she was CMO/EVP at Opsware, where she helped to re-position Loudcloud into a software company and formed Opsware in 2002. She has also held executive positions at Netscape, Kiva Software, AOL and Totality.