Big Data or Big Problems?
Tuesday April 21, 2015  7pm - 8:30pm (1 Hour 30 Minutes)
Lecture / Seminar

 wesley.booth@acadiau.ca
 (902) 585-1777

Event in Room: Auditorium

As Part of Big Data Week in Nova Scotia:
BIG DATA OR BIG PROBLEMS? THE PROS AND CONS OF DATA ANALYTICS DEBATE.

ABSTRACT: Big data and data analytics brings the promise of providing government, business and associations the opportunity to amass information on people, products and services in ways not before conceived. Analysis of this data has the potential to unlock the relationship between disease and life styles, connect customers with relevant products, to recognize terrorist activities in advance, or predict the onset of equipment failure before it happens. Unfortunately, the same data and analytical methods can be used to deny health care coverage, forecast poor academic achievement, and identify persons who are least likely to be promoted or most likely to have a heart attack on the job. Catherine Tully, FOIPOP Review Officer for Nova Scotia and Giles Crouch, Digital Management Consultant and Futurist at Thistlwood, will square off on the pros and cons of Big Data. Come join Peter Moreira, of Entrevestor, our moderator, as we examine some of the key questions and tensions that come between security of information and personal privacy versus the many wonderful things that can be achieved through data analytics in the public and corporate section.

BIOS:
Catherine Tully - Debater
Catherine Tully was appointed as the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Review Officer for Nova Scotia effective September 1, 2014. After being called to the Ontario Bar in 1990, Review Officer Tully initially practiced law in the Ontario legal clinic system. For the past 15 years she has worked exclusively in the area of access and privacy law.

From 2000 until 2006 she served as the Director of Access, Privacy and Records Management for three provincial government institutions in British Columbia. She then worked in a variety of capacities with the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia including as Assistant Information and Privacy Commissioner from 2008-2012. Most recently Review Officer Tully served as the Director of Access and Privacy for the Canada Post Corporation.

Ms. Tully holds a B.Sc., B.A. and LL.B. from the University of Ottawa and an LL.M. from Dalhousie University.

Giles Crouch - Debater
Giles is a globally experienced senior business executive. Today he combines 20 years of experience in sales, marketing communications and government relations in the technology sector as a digital management consultant. Giles has lead groundbreaking open source, Big Data social media research projects on sociopolitical and socioeconomic issues in countries such as Iraq, Haiti, several African nations, Iran and Canada. He has worked on projects with the UNDP, Canada's foreign affairs department and global Fortune 500 companies.

Giles has been interviewed numerous times by regional, national and international news media on the impacts of technology in business and society. He is a board director with industry association Digital Nova Scotia where he works on government relations’ issues. He is vice chair of the Big Data Congress for Productivity 2015 taking place in Halifax in October. He has volunteered with Entrepreneurs Forum for over 15 years and volunteered on numerous non-profit boards.

Peter Moreira - Moderator
Peter Moreira spent more than 30 years in journalism in Asia, Europe, and North America. He worked with The Deal of New York, covering M&A, private equity and VC markets in the U.S. and Canada for six years and serving four years as London Bureau Chief. At Bloomberg, he covered European and U.K. banking and finance. He previously worked for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, Knight-Ridder Financial in Hong Kong and Seoul, and the Canadian Press’s parliamentary bureau in Ottawa. His writing has appeared in USA Hemingway on the China Front (Potomac, 2006) and Backwater: Nova Scotia’s Economic Decline (Nimbus, 2009). His latest book, The Jew Who Defeated Hitler, the story of Henry Morgenthau Jr.’s work in financing the Allied effort in WWII, was published in autumn of 2014.

This debate is FREE to attend, but registration is REQUIRED to help us estimate numbers.
Refreshments will be provided.
To register please sign up at our website - aida.acadiau.ca/.
Pricing & Tickets
Pricing: Free
Poster
Acadia University
32 University Avenue
Wolfville, Nova Scotia

 botanicalgardens@acadiau.ca
 902-585-5242

       

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