Rein Mertens
Head of Customer Advisory SAS Platform
The current wave of artificial Intelligence (AI) developments have ignited mainstream imagination, renewing interest in data science and analytics. Beyond the fascination with the best statistical model in the data science lab, real value comes from the ability to embed discovered insights into business processes and action.
These discovery and deployment processes need active participation from a widening spectrum of roles, spanning data scientists, data engineers, business analysts and the business (management), IT and nowadays also legal. In addition to human interactions and collaboration, working together with machine learning algorithms means people need transparent understanding of the models, their fairness and therefore trust.
As an expert on the intersection of Analytics & AI, Data Management and Data Privacy, I advise organizations on what is needed to get maximum value out of applying analytics. Based on my 20 years of real-world experience, I provide guidance from organizational, people and architectural points of view. Corporate social responsibility is more often also part of those conversations: ‘technically we can do it, legally we are allowed to do it, but do we also think this is ethically ok?’