Darren Young

Darren has 30 years of experience in IT and telecom, 10 years in management consulting, and 20 years in the industry. He has led strategy work to help define new operating models as well as large-scale technology data and system deployments. Darren takes a client-centric approach, focuses on specific problems and challenges in the client's environment, and looks to address and solve these with particular cases or broader systematic change programs.

Darren is a Partner with Baringa Partners LLP – focusing on their Strategy, Digital, and Technology Consulting projects.

Digital, Data Science, AI: Operationalizing Innovations in/for the Power and Energy Sector

The webinar session presented real-world case studies demonstrating the practical applications of data science, AI, and digitalization to power generation and distribution utilities for increased reliability and efficiency in operations and customer service. It also looked into data science and AI for developing markets, with an emphasis on power pricing/trends and how data could support the challenges around better costs.

Joshua Cortez

Joshua Cortez is a data scientist with years of experience in data science consulting. He has delivered data science projects for organizations in various industries such as banking, FMCG, and retail, with projects varying from geospatial, customer segmentation, market mix modeling, record deduplication, and time series forecasting. Currently, he is a machine learning consultant at Thinking Machines Data Science, leading develop geospatial solutions for both the sustainability and telecommunications verticals.

Ren Avell Flores

Ren Avell Flores is a Geospatial Machine Learning Researcher at Thinking Machines Data Science, Inc. Working on projects for humanitarian aid, agriculture, and environmental conservation, she specializes in GIS and remote sensing applications. She has also co-authored three research papers in the fields of machine learning, open-source data, and meteorology. Ren Avell previously worked at the national weather bureau of the Philippines and is completing her masters in Geomatics Engineering at the University of the Philippines.

Distinguished Speaker Series: Using Mobility Analytics to Understand the Recovery of Cities After Disasters and Pandemics

This webinar featured Satish V. Ukkusuri of Purdue University who discussed how mobility data can be used to understand how cities can recover after major shocks, such as natural disasters and pandemics. Ukkusuri focused on the role of mobile phone and social media data to understand the recovery trajectories of businesses after disasters in Japan and the United States. In particular, Ukkusuri examined mobility analytics during the COVID-19 pandemic using data from these two countries, outlining their implications for economic recovery.

Chu Kiong Loo

Dr. Loo Chu Kiong formerly served as the Deputy Director of the University of Malaya’s Centre of Innovation and Commercialization (UMCIC). His research interests focus on Soft Computing (Soft- computing, Quantum Inspired SC, Brain-like Intelligent Systems, Affective Computing, Humanoid, Intelligent robot). He obtained his doctoral degree in Computer Science from the Universiti Sains Malaysia, and his bachelor’s degree in Engineering from the University of Malaya.