SAS® Academic Data Science Forum

09:00 - 09:30

Morning Coffee, Registration and Networking

09:30 - 09:40

Welcoming & Opening Address
Alicja Wiecka, Managing Director, SAS Poland

09:40 - 10:10

Data Science & Advanced Analytics skills – an Industry perspective
Łukasz Huńka, Director, Credit Risk Management SME, PKO BP

With almost 10 M customers PKO Bank Polski has the biggest and most extensive financial dataset in the Polish financial market. Each year customers make billions of transactions, interact with the mobile environment of the Bank and create unique patterns when using financial services. In the past few years the range of information increased to the level where keeping traditional analytical environment becomes irrelevant. Additionally unavoidable trends in the banking industry - such as the digital transformation - push banks to compete on each stage of the customer’s lifecycle. Catching the wave of the digitalization requires using the advanced analytical tools and developing the broad talent pool within the organization. In the presentation we would like to share our experience with our path to become data-driven organization, using diversified analytical tools, keeping and developing talents.

10:10 - 10:55

Professional Training and Research Programs in Data Science & Advanced Analytics
Riaan de Jongh, Director of the Centre for Business Mathematics and Informatics® at the North-West University (NWU), South Africa

Much has been written on the divide between industry and universities. This talk focuses on how the gap between universities and industry may be overcome in the emerging field of Data Science. Firstly, using the rise of Operational Research in the early 1970’s, and by drawing a parallel with Data Science, some of the lessons learnt will be highlighted. This will be used to construct guidelines for university-industry collaboration both in teaching and research. The guidelines will be illustrated by using a case study of a successful professional training and research programme in Data Science.

10:55 - 11:25

Tea & Networking

11:25 - 11:55

Local well-established SAS Academic Program
Ewa Frątczak, SGH Warsaw School of Economics

SAS has been in use at the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) for 30 years. It's a long story and a beautiful collaboration card. We have many SAS-based programs and many agreements for the implementation of certificates between SGH and SAS Institute Poland and SAS Inc.. Comprehensive education programs consists of two certificates at Bachelor's and Master's Degree: Certificate "Statistical Analyst with SAS System", Certificate "Data Scientist with SAS System". Several certificates at two Postgraduate Studies: "Statistical Analysis and Data Mining in Business" and "SAS Analyst Academy with R & Python ". We consider two new SAS Graduate joint certificate programs to be particularly important: “Statistical Analysis and Data Mining in Business” and “Business Analytics with SAS and open source”. The most successful aspects of our cooperation with SAS are not only Postgraduate Studies but also the new master program at SGH Advanced Analytics & Big Data, which has been carried out for 4 years at the SGH Warsaw School of Economics. It is very popular among students and it covers 5 SAS-based subjects. In addition to the realized education programs is an annual international workshop Advanced Analytics & Data Science organized from 6 years. Our philosophy of education is based on strong theoretical foundations, IT knowledge and business applications - combines hard and soft skills. We are lucky because in the implementation of our programs we find support in the dean's office of the Collegium of Economic Analysis of the SGH Warsaw School of Economics, favor of the rector's authorities and great kindness and help from SAS Institute Poland and SAS Inc.

11:55 - 12:15

Local well-established SAS Academic Program
Arkadiusz Orłowski, Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW

Warsaw University of Life Sciences (Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego) has been established exactly 100 years ago and it enjoys even earlier history dating back to 1816 (creation of the Institute of Agronomy in Marymont). Despite (or, perhaps, thanks to) its 200 years tradition the WULS-SGGW is commonly (and justly so) perceived as very modern, well equipped, and student-friendly place. Research and teaching activities at our University focus primarily on agriculture, biology, horticulture, food and nutrition, forestry, veterinary medicine, and disciplines that strongly support life sciences such us computer science, economics, and civil engineering. Our Faculty of Applied Informatics and Mathematics (WZIM) at WULS-SGGW is one of the important SAS academic partners involved in many initiatives that provide added value both to research and to education. We are the data analytics hub supporting other Faculties at the University in the area of advanced analytics, machine learning, pattern recognition, and image analysis. In this presentation I will give several examples of our SAS collaborations and initiatives as well as SAS-based scientific and educational projects.

12:15 - 12:40

Local well-established SAS Academic Program
Maciej Grzenda, Warsaw University of Technology

Data Science is one of the fastest-growing domains in IT and business in recent years. Not surprisingly, Data Science courses have been developed by universities to complement existing computer science and statistical data processing courses. During this presentation, Maciej Grzenda, PhD will share the experience of the Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science of the Warsaw University of Technology in building Data Science courses. How databases, big data processing, statistical methods and machine learning are combined in unique bachelor and master level programs will be described. Furthermore, a comparison to Computer Science and Mathematics programs offered by the faculty will be made. This will provide basis for discussion of SAS-based modules that provide the students with hands-on-experience on the use of SAS technology and enrich their portfolio of tools used to analyze the data. An important aspect of the presentation will be also how cooperation with industry and international research groups influenced the study programs.

12:40 - 13:10

Panel discussion and Q&A: Key considerations in building Data Science Programs and Profitable Public-Private Partnerships
Murray de Villiers, SAS Global Academic Program

13:10 - 13:55

Lunch & Networking

13:55 - 14:20

SAS Global Academic Program
Magda Hoch, Piotr Małaszek, SAS Poland

The presentation will focus on the SAS Global Academic Program, which offers among others, free access to SAS software and training options, SAS publications and a full range of resources to help learn and teach SAS. The SAS Ambassador Program, which is a highly competitive program, is designed to recognize students who are using SAS technologies in innovative ways, will be also briefly discussed.

14:20 - 15:00

SAS for the Entrepreneurial Academic Program
Mariusz Dzieciątko, Juan Kania Morales, SAS

SAS has a wide range of tools that allow for the free construction of curricula. The multitude of graphical interfaces allow focusing on the merits of the discussed topic instead of getting into programming problems. We will present a few of the solutions proposed, on a daily basis used by business, allowing effective solving of various business problems, from data preparation through statistical analysis to machine learning techniques and artificial intelligence.

15:00 - 16:00

Networking