With more than 30 speakers addressing hundreds of delegates across two stages, this year’s Big Data Belfast conference was the biggest to date.
Welcoming speakers from companies such as GitHub, Diaceutics, Dell Technologies, Reach plc (the UK’s largest newspaper group), Allstate NI, Citi and Liberty IT, Big Data Belfast 2019 set out to help individuals and organisations gain industry–leading insight and engage with decision–makers, experts and talent.
Addressing the conference, Aislinn Rice – MD of conference organisers Analytics Engines said:
“Today is the culmination of many months of dedication and hard work – and we’re proud to say this is the biggest Big Data Belfast conference to date. In the room today, we have over 30 speakers & panellists – from innovative startups like Lucinity and Kairos to large organisations such as EY, Allstate and Citi driving transformational change in their respective industries. Looking around the conference hall, we have over 550 delegates representing more than 160 companies. This makes a big statement about the health of the local developer community and data eco–system.”
Speakers such as Paul Brook from Dell outlined how organisations can use data to chart their way across both the digital world and the real world. EY’s Eoin O’Reilly provided an overview of the decade in data – highlighting the nine things that have changed in nine years in analytics. And UCD’s Mark Keane discussed developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and considerations to quickly arrive at sensible, safe and ethical ways to apply them.
Clair Sullivan, nuclear scientist turned machine learning engineer at GitHub took to the stage to discuss how data science has evolved, pointing out its humble origins over 7,000 years ago, being used by Mesopotamians to predict crop cycles. In an insightful look at the world of trade, Coriolis Technologies CEO Rebecca Harding spoke about how international trade data can be used to predict international conflicts.
Also at the conference, medical diagnostics firm Diaceutics announced that they will be the first tenant to sign up to the £100 million Health and Wellbeing Park at the King’s Hall. The DataWorks Development will serve as a hub for providers in the MedTech and Healthcare space to collaborate in Belfast.
Ulster University also announced a new strategic relationship with Dell Technologies and NVIDIA at the Big Data Conference that will see one of Northern Ireland’s leading research centres harness the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to develop assistive living and healthcare technology that will help transform patient outcomes.
Alongside a host of fantastic speakers, Big Data Belfast 2019 also welcomed a range of innovative exhibitors. Providing the organisations, both large and small with the ideal platform to showcase their services, products and solutions, engage with talent and grow their network. Among these exhibitors were data analytics consultancy firm Jumping Rivers and data science training specialists Coding Fury.
Presented by Analytics Engines, with EY as headline sponsor, Big Data Belfast is also supported by Dell, CME Group, Allstate Northern Ireland, Citi, SmashFly, SpotX and Altra Executives and industry sponsors Liberty IT, Invest Northern Ireland and Signifyd. For the full gallery of photos from this conference, visit bigdatabelfast.com
Our attention now turns to Big Data Belfast 2020. Later this year, we’ll be announcing the date of next year’s conference. If you’d like to be involved in Big Data Belfast 2020, please contact p.kirk@analyticsengines.com for more information.