Edition 3: The Data Roundup Newsletter

After 26 months of no international travel I took my first flight...and I sit here in the UK putting together this edition of the Data Roundup Newsletter. My dad was a pilot so I grew up on airplanes and have taken an international flight every year since 1999 - which is a very fortunate position to be in. So being "grounded" for over 2 years left a fairly big void in my life. But relative to the other, more serious problems that COVID created, not being able to fly is fairly insignificant.

But, I think taking this chance to travel indicates that we are returning to pre-COVID levels of normalcy. Although wearing a mask for nearly 18 hours straight doesn't make you feel like it is.

This month I hosted a dinner for CISOs that allowed candid conversation in a closed doors environment. This will be the first of many dinners we'll host for CISOs in South Africa. Thanks to those who attended the first one and made it a fun and informative evening.

In this edition I'm happy to introduce "The Data Protection Show with Janine West" - a 6 episode series on data protection and data privacy. Janine is incredibly knowledgeable in this area and so we're lucky to have her sharing her expertise and thoughts. We'll bring guests in over the course of the series too.

Johan Steyn - AI thought leader - also provides a video interview on the trends he's seeing in AI. Johan is a leading contributor in this field, including for Business Day, so to have him contribute to this small (but rapidly growing) newsletter is a real coup.

We have a guest contribution from Merelda Wu and Greg Desilla, of Melio.ai, on the "5 Steps for Frictionless AI" which is a valuable guide on what can be a tricky area.

And of course we have articles from our wonderful regular contributors.

The Data Roundup Newsletter has over 6, 200 subscribers already. Thanks to everyone for the support and interest. Putting this together is one of my absolute favourite things.

Enjoy!

Craig

The Digital Playbook by Verushca Hunter

As Head of Digital Innovation for Group Internal Audit at Absa Bank, my responsibility is to digitally transform the function into a digitally led and data driven Audit function of the future. I started this journey in February 2021 and would like to share...read more

The Pareto Principle: Eighty-Twentying Data by Jose Almeida

I entered the world of data, starting by data quality, making quality one of the foundational themes for all the work I’ve been producing since. “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” is one of my favorite...read more

Data Citizenship: A Precursor to Data Democratization by Dr Sizwe Gwala

A citation by Heraclitus Arapahoe that “The only constant in life is change.” resonates in contemporary days where businesses are constantly transforming, with highly dynamic and versatile players dominating the space, across...read more

5 Steps to Frictionless AI by Merelda Wu, Greg Desilla from Melio AI

It has been a decade since Harvard Business Review called Data Scientist the sexiest career in the 21st Century. The companies who grabbed onto these talents have not only transformed but completely disrupted the status quo...read more

Key Learning Points for High-Frequency Data Analytics by Matthew Bernath

Data analytics and AI depends on historical data to make predictions of the future. During COVID-19, the change in behaviour and increased frequency of global events was enough to overwhelm most models, even sophisticated AI...read more

What to do with Data by MH van Staden

Everybody is doing it. Having individuals with data specific roles, or even entire teams focusing on data functions, has become commonplace in many organisations. It is now common practice to have some level of data collection, transformation, storage,...read more

The Case for Collaboration in Defending Against Cyber Attacks

Guest Blog: If you want to beat the bad guy, you’re going to need a whole community of good guys on your side. In other words – when it comes to cyber security – collaboration is key. “With great power comes great responsibility,” said...read more

Trends in AI with Johan Steyn

In the first of what will become a regular conversation with Johan, he discusses the trends he's seeing in AI. Our conversation covers everything from the perception of AI to the ethics that should govern the technology...read more

Using Data to Identify Cyber Threats (Video) with Emily Amukelani

Emily Amukelani from Absa joins us to share her advice on how data must be utilised across the entire business to properly identify cyber threats...read more

Episode 1: The Data Protection Show with Janine West (Video)

In the first episode of a 6 part series Janine West of Marco Polo Advisory provides insight into new international data protection laws and advice for South African companies in the POPIA era. Janine's three key pieces of advice are: Know what data you're processing and where When it comes to...read more

"Data Governance is an imperative factor in our ability to trust, speed-up & scale the value delivery from our organisation’s data"

Anwar Mirza, Data Governance & Strategy, FedEx Express

Our first live events are just under 4 weeks away and we're extremely excited for this new era of events for data analytics leaders in South Africa.

A Data Leaders Exchange event is designed to be highly interactive with in-depth discussions with the speakers and lots of audience engagement. Each event is limited to 75 total attendees to encourage conversation.

We welcome Slipstream Data and WhereScape as joint Lead Sponsor of the event joining our Platinum Sponsors, OpenText, Informatica & iOCO,

Make sure you secure your seat by booking here - bookings close on 1 March.

And a month after Data Leaders Exchange our event for the information security community - Security Leaders Exchange - takes place.

We're privileged to be working some of the profession's leading practitioners on this event including Itumeleng Makgati, Justin Williams, Celia Mantshiyane and Gus Clarke.

This event is also limited to 75 total attendees so make sure you secure your seat.

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Signing off from London where I found this incredible little coffee shop just off Borough Market. It's pretentious and ultra-hipster...which suits me fine especially if the coffee is good!

Look out for the next edition in 2 weeks time

Craig