Financial Statistics/Marketing Seminar

Sponsored by SORA - the Southern Ontario Chapter of the American Statistical Association and the Southern Ontario Regional Association of the Statistical Society of Canada. This seminar is co-sponsored by the Bank of Nova Scotia and is the first in a series. The second seminar is planned for November 1999.

Everyone is welcome to attend. There is no fee for these seminars, but space is limited so pre-registration is essential.

Speaker:

Mr Gary Saarenvirta
Principal Consultant - The Loyalty Group

Date:

Wednesday September 15, 1999

Time:

2:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Location:

The Bank of Nova Scotia,
National Trust Board Room
"1 Financial Place"
1 Adelaide Street East, 3rd Floor, Toronto

This is 1 block north of King at the south-east corner of Yonge and Adelaide (King subway station).

Program

Introduction to data mining. What is data mining? What is the technology infrastructure required for data mining? What are the output of AI/machine learning algorithms and what can business do with them? Case Studies.
A practical methodology for predictive modeling, with case studies. This would include a description of Neural Prediction, RBF Regression, CART.

About the Speaker

Gary Saarenvirta has been working in the business intelligence industry for the last 8 years. Gary joined The Loyalty Group in May 1995 to manage the creation and day to day operation of the AIR MILES STAR (Strategic Targeting, Analysis and Results) system. The STAR system is a marketing data warehouse that currently contains over 7 million customer records and over 1 billion transaction records. For the last 3 years he has played a key role in the development of Loyalty Consulting and has been principal consultant there. Loyalty Consulting is a business unit of The Loyalty Group providing data mining and data warehousing services to Global 2000 corporations. Loyalty Consulting has recently provided consulting services to the finance, telecommunications, insurance and retail industries in Canada, the U.S. and Southeast Asia.

Prior the joining The Loyalty Group, Gary was a senior consultant at METEX Systems Inc., a software development and consulting firm specializing in object-oriented client-server application development. Gary also worked for 3 years as a researcher at the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, following completion of his education in Aerospace Engineering.

Gary currently writes articles and speaks at conferences about the business benefits of data mining and data warehousing. Some of Gary's recent articles can be found in the fall 98 and Spring 99 issues of DB2 Magazine which can be read online at www.db2mag.com and in the February 99 issue of CMA magazine. Gary also co-authored a book on data mining using IBM's Intelligent Miner for Data. This book is available from IBM on-line at www.redbooks.ibm.com where it can also be ordered in hard copy. The book's title is "Intelligent Miner for Data Applications Guide".

Please RSVP

If you plan to attend this seminar, please RSVP to Ivan Hon, Scotiabank, Retail Marketing, 602-100 Yonge Street, Toronto, telephone (416) 933-1493, or e-mail ivan.hon@scotiabank.com., no later than Monday September 6, 1999.

Please contact Ivan Hon if you want more information about the SORA Financial Statistics/Marketing Seminars.