Key Takeaways from the BISS’ Session at the WiDS Conference 2021

During the BISS’ session at the Women in Data Science (WiDS) Conference 2021 on March 9, Medtronic, Statistics Netherlands (CBS), CaptainVR and CADChain gave presentations on use cases or problems related to data science at their companies. After the pitches, conference participants went into chosen break-out rooms to discuss and look for possible solutions together with the representatives of the companies and moderators from BISS.

Learn more about Medtronic, Statistics Netherlands (CBS), CaptainVR and CADChain in our previous post.

The WiDS Conference hosted by the Institute of Data Science in conjunction with WiDS Netherlands aims to inspire and educate data scientists worldwide, regardless of gender, and to support women in the field. It provides an opportunity to hear about the latest data science-related research and connect with others in the field. Continue reading

 

Key takeaways from the session

Medtronic. Speaker: Aranka de Barbanson, Business Analyst Data Science – Medtronic B.V. European Operations Center (EOC). Learn more

• Medtronic has been around since the 1940s and evolved to become one of the largest healthcare technology solutions companies in the world. Medtronic’s mission to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life has been written in 1960 and still drives everything Medtronic does.
• The Advanced Analytics team, part of the Medtronic EOC Heerlen, is specialized in Data Science solutions for business in EMEA. It sets the foundation for a data-driven culture and creates value for stakeholders by enabling actionable insights and better decision-making.
• Digital transformation challenges, are present in all sorts of business nowadays and differ from company culture change management and new ways of working to the measurability of business value for data science projects a priori.
• Applying more Agile ways of working by iterative development cycles, co-creation and prototyping, often leads to faster results and increased stakeholder satisfaction.
• Two use cases were shared: prediction- and recommendation models and results.

 

Statistics Netherlands. Speaker: Yvonne Gootzen. Learn more

• Statistics can be highly beneficial to identify societal trends and patterns otherwise not immediately evident.
• Collecting data from different sources and constructing a complex grid of analysis has a high potential to help policy-makers to identify and act on existing scenarios.
• Although the collection and analysis of data are not related to a particular normative objective it can significantly contribute to addressing societal challenges.
• Statisticians by definition describe the characteristics of groups of entities and gain little information about these groups from small sample sizes
• The collection of aggregated data should be extended in terms of quantity and quality (transnational networks).
• However, it might also be recommended to further define societal challenges, normative objectives and priorities that can benefit from data science analysis (e.g. combating poverty, engagement, sustainability).

 

CADChain. Speaker: Violetta Shishkina (Founder). Learn more

• Violetta from CADChain provided information on Women as entrepreneurs and how the Dutch government focuses on stimulating more women to engage in entrepreneurship.
• She then focused on the Women in Tech topic and how it is difficult for women to navigate their ways in a market full of men.
• CADChain contribution to solving this problem is Gameopreneurship. It is a method of using simulations of real-life problems that face entrepreneur and trying to solve them in a game-like framework. This initiative is going to use data science techniques.

 

CaptainVR. Speaker: Dana-Maria Faneker (Founder & Concept Creator). Learn more

• The adoption of VR technologies in the Netherlands and worldwide continues to increase steadily.
• Key performance indicators show that VR implementation can increase productivity (>2%) and generate profits (~200k euro) in societal organizations
• It is still needed, however, to improve and strengthen the transition from pilot projects to long-term implementation.
• Interactive discussions pointed out the ability of VR to contribute to decreasing healthcare costs. For instance, in the management of diabetes in the Netherlands.
• “Sitting is the new smoking” – Digital technologies have the potential to promote physical activity and healthier lifestyles
• Data storage is currently a challenge. The aim is to preserve privacy and to keep anonymity.
• CaptainVR works towards an extended reality-based hologram application, a virtual buddy that can, for instance, physically train with people.