The conference organized by Women In Business Association, Artificial Intelligence 360°, took place at Bocconi Unviersity on April 12th with a panel of four women experts on Data Analysis and Artificial Intelligence from different work fields.
The aim of the event was to help students understand the new discipline, application and skills necessary to dominate the A.I.
The position of mediator was designed to Professor Riccardo Zecchina (Computer Science, specialized in Mathematics and Machine Learning). Before and after the discussion he raised a number of interesting issues which are going on nowadays in the field of machine learning, for example, biased data that lead to biased results and the little theoretical advancement to which we have been witnessing for the past twenty years.
The first speaker was Alessandra Chiuderi, a big data analytics expert with a professional background in consumer behaviour and personalized products for different companies. She highlights the necessity of putting analytics into the value chain and how it is fundamental for the insurance companies framework to analyze the past in order to predict the future.
For Alessandra, now is the moment to expand skills related to the data analytics fields, cause the future work field will require this.
The analytics, algorithms and data sets are overpassing their original boundaries, currently being used for different situations and markets.
Alessandra pointed out cross-selling, as the important point of using data sets as well as the fraud prevention and detection. Therefore, analytics represent a great advantage for the companies but is also good for the customers.
The second speaker was Parvaneh Shafili, who successfully pursued a career in data science, after having completed a bachelor degree in computer engineering and then switched to computer science during the Master’s degree. Always working with the purpose of getting value from the data, Parvaneh founded the association R Ladies Milan, inspired by the existing R Ladies organization with the aim of promoting the diversity in data science field. She gave out useful tips and bits of advice on what is needed to access a career in data science or to pursue and master the discipline. She also focuses on the importance of being able to communicate to others our results and to be constantly updating our knowledge, not to compete with machines and their A.I. but to understand how to use them to our advantage in the best possible way!
In the second half of the lecture, two other guests gave their precious contribution. Nancy Cooklin, an expert in coaching and counselling, spoke about the human side of Artificial Intelligence. She stressed the fact that human beings put in their opinions and prejudice on actions and work and therefore cannot compete with machines on the gathering of information area. But nonetheless, machines do not have the ability to understand, motivate and interact with other human beings.
And that is where our biggest advantage lies: we should develop our emotional intelligence not only because leadership is closely correlated with the concept of social influence but also because soft skills are as important as specific technical knowledge.
Our last guest was Laura Oliva, CEO of a fintech company and Bocconi alumni. With quant insights, her company has developed probabilistic systems that help to understand future scenarios in the framework of financial risk management. They present tools to the companies and reassure the managers and CEO’s that these systems won’t threaten their job position but quite the opposite, will help them get the job done in a more productively way.
A stimulating discussion followed at the end of the lecture in which the guests and the audience could exchange their opinions on data science-related skills and mindsets necessary to enter in the job market and the exciting opportunities that these relatively new disciplines open to us.
The Artificial Intelligence 360° organized by WiB Association was an opportunity to understand that we don’t have to become a machine to do a great job. If we as humans are open to learning from the new technologies coming from A.I., the machines would not be the enemies of the future job market but quite the contrary, the best ally we can have to be prepared for what the future holds.
Felipa Fevereiro and Irene Salvi
Women in Business_Bocconi Female Students Association