The October Business Analytics Forum of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville’s Haslam College of Business drew more than 100 professionals, including top names from Amazon, IBM Watson and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, to discuss business applications for machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Professionals from more than 40 companies, as well as Haslam Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) students, spent a day and a half in presentations, breakout sessions and networking receptions.
The forum, which takes place twice a year, brings together senior-level managers with emerging talent and helps both parties expand their thinking about analytics, explains Michael Galbreth, head of the Department of Business Analytics and Statistics and the Pilot Chair of Excellence at Haslam.
“Not only does the forum bring together top-tier talent and companies, it provides a rich opportunity to explore ways of moving business forward through the impactful application of data,” Galbreth says. “The forum’s industry influence has grown each year since its inception in 2013, and we’re pleased to have hosted a number of high-profile participants again this year.”
Jerry Day, an MSBA student and MBA fellow at Haslam, enjoyed networking with corporate representatives and gaining insight into the application of research findings.
“My favorite part of the forum was interacting with industry leaders and analytics practitioners,” Day says. “An analyst and I were working on similar applications, and when we compared approaches and talked about important features that each of us had found we both left with new insights. Additionally, I was very interested to hear about the interplay between simulation, statistical measurement and implementation used by Amazon and others.”
Haslam’s 2018 Fall Business Analytics Forum also included a Hack-a-Thon, during which MSBA students used real company data to solve a real business problem within hours, and an expert panel hosted by the Sports Analytics Club.
