http://www.actuarialsociety.org.za The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) seminar held in Sandton at the Michelangelo Hotel on the 12th of September 2018 consisted of meaningful and informative presentations and discussions around Big Data and Advanced Analytics. The speaker line-up included a wide range of organisations such as the MTN Rhino Project, Naked Insure, First National Bank, Data Prophet and Analytix Engine Business en Wed, 19 Sep 2018 09:37:54 +0200 Wed, 19 Sep 2018 10:30:12 +0200 30 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss iono.fm 2.5.2.0 Actuarial Society of South Africa 2009 - 2011 no Yearly feeds@iono.fm (Feed Manager) https://cdn.iono.fm/files/p65/logo_65_20250908_202340_1400.jpeg http://www.actuarialsociety.org.za The Continuing Professional Development (CPD) seminar held in Sandton at the Michelangelo Hotel on the 12th of September 2018 consisted of meaningful and informative presentations and discussions around Big Data and Advanced Analytics. Actuarial Society of South Africa serial Actuarial Society of South Africa communications@actuarialsociety.org.za false ZA https://iono.fm/e/605001 https://iono.fm/e/605001
Ashleigh leads the Actuarial & Analytical Solutions practice for Deloitte Southern Africa. She specialises in using actuarial and advanced analytics to support organisations in order to make both strategic and operational decisions. She also assists clients to link and execute operational initiatives in line with their strategic vision. Ashleigh's area of expertise lies in deriving and producing predictive models for business domains including customer and workforce planning. In addition one of her core focus areas includes advising clients on reward and employee benefits to include the valuation of all forms of pension benefits that may be offered to pensioners.

Ashleigh served as the Minister of Health’s appointed actuary to the Board of the Council of Medical Schemes for a period of 3 years ending November 2014. During this period Ashleigh started to build the Advanced Analytics practice within Deloitte. She is acknowledged as a thought leader in the market and as a result is not only a regular fixture at local and international conferences but currently serves on the following actuarial committees:

Actuarial Society of South Africa’s Healthcare
Actuarial Society of South Africa’s NHI Task Team, where she is the chairman.
Actuarial Society of South Africa’s BI Forum, where she is the chairman.
Ashleigh has extensive experience within the South African and African markets. She has also consulted to organisations outside of Africa including the United States, United Kingdom and India. Ashleigh's industry experience covers healthcare, public sector, manufacturing, consumer business and telecoms.

She is also the Global Marketing Actuarial Committee Leader for Deloitte and sits on the Actuarial Rewards & Analytics Executive Committee. ]]> Business Wed, 12 Sep 2018 09:38:00 +0200 1 1 Welcome & Context 1 1 Actuarial Society of South Africa full 3:29 The ASSA 2018 Wider Fields CPD Event https://iono.fm/e/605004 https://iono.fm/e/605004
Ashleigh leads the Actuarial & Analytical Solutions practice for Deloitte Southern Africa. She specialises in using actuarial and advanced analytics to support organisations in order to make both strategic and operational decisions. She also assists clients to link and execute operational initiatives in line with their strategic vision. Ashleigh's area of expertise lies in deriving and producing predictive models for business domains including customer and workforce planning. In addition one of her core focus areas includes advising clients on reward and employee benefits to include the valuation of all forms of pension benefits that may be offered to pensioners.

Ashleigh served as the Minister of Health’s appointed actuary to the Board of the Council of Medical Schemes for a period of 3 years ending November 2014. During this period Ashleigh started to build the Advanced Analytics practice within Deloitte. She is acknowledged as a thought leader in the market and as a result is not only a regular fixture at local and international conferences but currently serves on the following actuarial committees:

Actuarial Society of South Africa’s Healthcare
Actuarial Society of South Africa’s NHI Task Team, where she is the chairman.
Actuarial Society of South Africa’s BI Forum, where she is the chairman.
Ashleigh has extensive experience within the South African and African markets. She has also consulted to organisations outside of Africa including the United States, United Kingdom and India. Ashleigh's industry experience covers healthcare, public sector, manufacturing, consumer business and telecoms.

She is also the Global Marketing Actuarial Committee Leader for Deloitte and sits on the Actuarial Rewards & Analytics Executive Committee. ]]> Business Wed, 12 Sep 2018 09:45:00 +0200 1 2 Live Presentation: Review of Advanced Analytics Programs 1 2 Actuarial Society of South Africa full 20:42 The ASSA 2018 Wider Fields CPD Event https://iono.fm/e/605007 https://iono.fm/e/605007
Sumarié has built a career as one of the leading short-term insurance actuaries in South Africa. She headed short-term insurance consulting at her own firm, Quindiem Consulting, for over 15 years. In 2011, Quindiem was acquired by EY and Sumarie became a Partner at EY and Head of EY Africa’s Africa Actuarial Services Short Term Insurance Practice. Over the years, Sumarie served as actuarial advisor to most of South Africa’s large insurers.

Ernest North is a fully qualified short-term insurance actuary, previously head of pricing at Hannover Reinsurance (the African branch of the global German provider), then consulted to various insurers across Southern and East Africa for 5 years, before leading product development as the Underwriting and Actuarial Director at a South African insurance group.

With Alex Thomson they Co-founded Naked (development kicking off in October 2016) which launched in April 2018 ]]> Business Wed, 12 Sep 2018 09:47:00 +0200 1 3 Live Presentation: Naked Tech 1 3 Actuarial Society of South Africa full 44:49 The ASSA 2018 Wider Fields CPD Event https://iono.fm/e/605014 https://iono.fm/e/605014
Since founding DataProphet in 2014, Frans has been involved in a wide range of machine learning projects spanning emotion recognition with computer vision to eDiscovery with Natural Language Processing. Prior to starting DataProphet, Frans completed his Master’s of Science in Mathematical Statistics and his Honours in Actuarial Science at the University of Cape Town; in addition to working at the management consultancy, Bain and Company. ]]> Business Wed, 12 Sep 2018 09:52:00 +0200 1 4 Video Presentation: Machine Learning in a Manufacturing context 1 4 Actuarial Society of South Africa full 22:59 The ASSA 2018 Wider Fields CPD Event https://iono.fm/e/605022 https://iono.fm/e/605022
Pravin Burra - Head: Customer Insights & Analytics, Personal & Business Banking at Standard Bank Group

An actuary by training I have a passion for the efficient use of models to add value and manage risk. I am a strict advocate of good model governance and believe that models should help inform business decisions but cannot in isolation give rise to decisions directly.

FC de Vos - Founder at Analytix Engine
We live in a world where our daily needs are being met by corporations who are continuously evolving to become more and more in tune with how we would like to live our lives. It excites me to support this client-centric culture by employing cutting-edge analytical solutions to help guide organisations in this journey.

I have chosen to blend the strategic, ethical and financial elements of the actuarial profession with innovative analytical toolsets such as machine learning and big data as the base I work from.
Having gained experience in using this toolset both in consulting and corporate environments to meet the needs of customers in various sectors and industries, I believe organisations can leverage this experience to improve the way they do business in new ways.

If you are looking for some keywords, here you go:
strategy | retail | actuarial | big data | spark | hadoop | sas | machine learning | python | R | data science | data scientist | voice to text ]]> Business Wed, 12 Sep 2018 09:58:00 +0200 1 5 Live Presentation: Banking Analytics 1 5 Actuarial Society of South Africa full 37:10 The ASSA 2018 Wider Fields CPD Event https://iono.fm/e/605024 https://iono.fm/e/605024
Lukas is a Senior Manager in the Short-Term Insurance practice of Deloitte Actuarial & Insurance Solutions. He joined at the start of 2017 having previously fulfilled the role of Head of Pricing at a Short-Term insurer. In addition to Short-Term Insurance pricing he also has significant experience in product development and risk management.

In addition to the 5 years’ experience in Short-Term Insurance, Lukas also has 3 years’ experience in the South African Healthcare Industry where he assisted Medical Schemes and Health Insurers with setting premium / contribution rates, benefit design and reinsurance structuring. ]]> Business Wed, 12 Sep 2018 10:05:00 +0200 1 6 Live Presentation: Survey Results 1 6 Actuarial Society of South Africa full 26:30 The ASSA 2018 Wider Fields CPD Event https://iono.fm/e/605037 https://iono.fm/e/605037 2.Eric Kagou & Bhaviata Parbhoo – Software Developer & Analytics Manager with FNB
3.Godfrey Kgoedi & Bhaviata Parbhoo – Quantitative Analyst & Analytics Manager with FNB

Bernard has a PhD from the University of Leicester, researching machine learning models to classify land cover classes from satellite imagery. In addition, he has 9 years’ experience in model development within the banking environment. The Head of Lifecycle Analytics at WesBank, where his team focuses on understanding customer behaviour through advanced analytics.

Jacqueline has an honours degree in Finance and 8 years banking experience. Recently completed a certificate in Graphic Design. Works (and plays) as a Data Scientist in the Lifecycle Analytics team at WesBank building models and visualisation tools, using advanced analytics, to help understand customer behaviour.

Eric has been a tech developer in the financial and banking industry for over 10 years working in designing, building web and mobile application, as well as application to automate network and infrastructure. His current work and research focus on Natural Language Processing “NLP” and network graphs.

Bhaviata has a degree in Computational and Applied Maths and Computer Science, a nearly qualified actuarial student. 6.5 years banking experience across the fields of retail and commercial credit analytics as and wider analytics applications. A manager in the FNB Advanced Analytics area, which focuses on developing analytical solutions across the First Rand Group.

Godfrey is a specialist in big data and analytics such as Netezza, Machine Learning and AI to draw insights and drive key business decisions. 8 years of experience working with data and analytics and two data, analytics and systems related honours degrees (Computer Science and Mathematical Statistics). ]]> Business Wed, 12 Sep 2018 10:08:00 +0200 1 7 Live Presentations: 1. Which car is best? 2.Customer Service ChatBots 3.Property Rating Scale 1 7 Actuarial Society of South Africa full 43:55 The ASSA 2018 Wider Fields CPD Event https://iono.fm/e/605038 https://iono.fm/e/605038 Business Wed, 12 Sep 2018 10:29:00 +0200 1 8 Closing Remarks & Conclusion 1 8 Actuarial Society of South Africa full 2:47 The ASSA 2018 Wider Fields CPD Event