Open Tech Calendar

Public lecture by data experts Ted Dunning and Ellen Friedman

Tuesday 16 Februay 2016, 6pm, The Diamond Lecture Theatre 2

The University is delighted to welcome Ted Dunning and Ellen Friedman to give a lecture about data in today’s digital society.

A revolution is underway that is having large effects on essentially every aspect of society. Those bringing about this global revolution carry keyboards. Their instruments of change are new technologies and techniques for processing huge amounts of data, including ground-breaking approaches to compute with real time data even at very large scale.

The effects of these new technologies are to enable us to react differently to the world around us, giving us greater flexibility with regard to the sources of data we use to drive both human and machine-based decisions and better ability to respond to events as they happen. These techniques can improve our ability to detect security threats and prevent fraud, provide better medical monitoring and greater efficiency in transportation.

One area that is driving this need for a fundamental change is the Internet of Things (IoT), which ranges from the manufacture of “smart parts” in industrial settings to connected vehicles and even down to the mobile phone in your pocket.

In this talk, we will examine the enormous potential offered by big data, explain the new technologies that enable real time analytics and explore best practices for transforming how we plan large-scale computing projects.

About the speakers

Ted Dunning, Chief Application Architect for MapR Technologies, is an expert in big data computing and machine learning. With a PhD in Computer Sciences from University of Sheffield, Ted is active in open source projects, serving as VP for Incubator and a committer on many projects for Apache Software Foundation. He has designed fraud detection systems and recommendation engines, has 24 patents to date and is co-author on over a half dozen books and monographs.

Ellen Friedman is a Solutions Consultant and author, currently writing primarily about big data topics in a variety of books and monographs. She is a committer on the Apache Drill and Apache Mahout open source projects, has a PhD in biochemistry and serves as a Director on the Board for Sheffield in America.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Keith Burnett said, "I am delighted to welcome Ted Dunning and Ellen Friedman back to The University of Sheffield. Ted completed his PhD in Computer Science in Sheffield and is an international leader in data science. Ellen works closely with Ted on this work, and is a wonderful exponent of how changes in technology are transforming the way we conduct every aspect of our society, economy and lives. She is also an active member of The University of Sheffield in America board. I am delighted that our students, staff and others will have the opportunity to hear from this dynamic couple and to share with them some of their insights into the latest developments in information technology."