It's the Economy Stupid - The power of Data in Politics and Economics
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“It’s the Economy, Stupid”
This famous phrase from Bill Clinton’s election campaign in 1992 summed up what really happened in the election campaign, which we were told would still be raging in a frantic web of back-room deals. Politics and Economics are often natural bedfellows, so I thought it might be fun to combine them and have a solid debate on both. With a strong emphasis on the DataScience, of course.
7pm | Monday 18th May | 38 Little Clarendon Street, St Giles, Oxford OX1 2HF
Politics...
One of the big data discussions is how the pollsters got it so wildly wrong. And in many cases we weren't seeing political ideologies win out as much as systems and resources.
David Newman, an expert in e-participation, learning technology and community informatics, is in charge of organizing all the election campaigns in Oxfordshire for the Green Party. He tells us how the Green Party handled its election data and how DataScience helped their election campaign.
...And Economics
Oxford Economics creates data forecasts and analysis on 200 countries, 100 sectors and 3,000 cities and sub-regions, applying economic impact analysis and other quantitative tools to inform policy and business decisions and answering questions such as the trajectory and magnitude of change that is likely to confront London’s economy in the decade and a half from 2015 up to 2030. Arvindra Sehmi is their CIO, with 25 years’ experience in capital markets and high-technology software industries, enterprise software architecture and solutions development. Here he shows us how the company does economic data wrangling using Excel BI.
David Newman
In charge of organizing all the election campaigns in Oxfordshire for the Green Party. I have degrees in Materials Science, Artificial Intelligence and Appropriate Technology. A practical scientist and engineer who worked on biomass energy in the UK and Kenya, starting a new industry in energy-efficient stoves, producing 25,000 a year. In Belfast he helped community groups and businesses to make effective use of the Internet, and councils and parliaments to consult electronically, running €0.5 million international projects. In Oxfordshire he set up the learning technology for a new degree in public policy, consults in educational technology, e-democracy and appropriate technology for development and has been helping older people learn to master computers. In his career, he has been Learning Technologist (https://www.linkedin.com/title/learning-technologist?trk=mprofile_title) at University of Oxford (https://www.linkedin.com/company/4477?trk=prof-exp-company-name) Blavatnik School of Government, Lecturer in Information Systems (https://www.linkedin.com/title/lecturer-in-information-systems?trk=mprofile_title) at Queen's University Belfast (https://www.linkedin.com/company/15723?trk=prof-exp-company-name) for 18 years, teaching Information Systems in the Queen's University Management School, and doing research into e-democracy, e-governance, IT for development, e-learning and community informatics. Computing Officer in Expert Systems (https://www.linkedin.com/title/computing-officer-in-expert-systems?trk=mprofile_title) at Aston University (https://www.linkedin.com/company/16267?trk=prof-exp-company-name), Research Fellow in Kenyatta University and Lecturer in the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique.
Arvindra Sehmi
Arvindra Sehmi is CIO at Oxford Economics Ltd. with 25 years’ experience in capital markets and high-technology software industries, enterprise software architecture and solutions development. He has been a professional data wrangler for much of this time in academia, finance and media industries, and as a consultant and advisor to numerous large global companies and small to mid-size businesses. From inception, envisioning, mapping, planning and executing, he is experienced in driving business and IT innovation, leading IT change and sense-making programs, building agile software development teams and in people and talent management. Connect with Arvindra on LinkedIn (http://uk.linkedin.com/in/asehmi) or Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/asehmi).
Here he shows us how the company delivers great data and business intelligence end-user experiences through Microsoft Excel and how economic data wrangling can be achieved using Microsoft Power BI.