Oslo Big Data Day 2023

Hans-Henrik Merckoll is the Country General Manager of IBM in Norway and has been with the company since 2017. Merckoll has over 20 years’ experience from the Norwegian IT-and services industry and has experience from EVRY, Telenor Telehuset, Hewlett Packard Norway, Compaq, Storebrand, IF Forsikring and THORN.

Merckoll holds a Master of Business Administration from BI Norwegian Business School and is chairman of The Norwegian Center for Information Security (NorSIS) and part of the board of IKT- Norge.

Kristine Dahl Steidel has extensive experience within leadership and sales management. She has worked for industry leading IT companies since 1997. For the past 16 years, Dahl Steidel has worked in VMware, where she held several leading positions, including country manager in VMware Norway and regional director for the Nordic and Baltic countries. Prior to joining Microsoft Norway as General Manager in November 2021, she held the position as Vice President of VMware's digital workspaces in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Before VMware, Dahl Steidel worked for industry leading companies such as Cinet, Merkantildata (ATEA) and WM-data in Norway.

Kristine Dahl Steidel holds a master’s degree in management from BI Norwegian Business School, with a major in Organizational Change focused on innovation. Kristine is passionate about leading diverse and inclusive teams.

She also cares deeply about the possibilities within technology to succeed in creating a more sustainable future.

Tormod Heier is Professor in Military Strategy and Operations at the Norwegian Defence University College in Oslo. Heier has previously served as officer in the Norwegian Army, in the Intelligence Service, in NATO’s mission in Afghanistan, and in the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. 

Professor Harald Øverby is Provost for Student Learning. He comes from the position as Professor at the Department of Information Security and Communication Technology at NTNU. His research areas are digital economics, business models, internet law, regulations and governance, and internet architectures. From 2013–2017 he was Head of the Department of Telematics at NTNU. He obtained his PhD in information and communication technology from NTNU in 2005.

Head of AI and Data Engineering at KnowIt Objectnet, with 18 years of public cloud experience. Has worked in a wide variety of sectors, stacks, continents and companies. Worked with cloud data platforms for 8 years, including technologies like Dataiku, Databricks, Snowflake, AWS, GCP and Azure, and methodologies like data domains, data mesh. Enthusiastic about responsible yet pragmatic value-focused engineering, and the path to make organizations data driven.

Emilia Trollmåne believes that cyber security should be fun and enticing. As a representative for Defentry she loves to share her personal perspective on cyber security and why we should embrace human behaviours instead of trying to change them. Defentry is a Nordic cyber safety company that provides a real-time 24/7 digital monitoring and alert service. Defentry’s SaaS platform collects global data and perform analyses on critical cyber threats. The data is aggregated and processed in Defentry’s analytics engine to proactively identify data related to fraud. The outcome of the analysis is automatically translated into warnings to companies or end-users with proposed actions on next steps - all to reduce the risk of fraud.

Ieva Martinkenaite is the Senior Vice President, Head of Research and Innovation in Telenor Group. Ieva is among the key figures at Telenor Group contributing to building New Generation connectivity and Artificial Intelligence research and innovation ecosystems. Her work also includes advisory to Telenor executives and business leaders on digital technologies and innovation strategy. 

In addition to more than 15 years of business and research experience, Martinkenaite has held several high-profile regional and national appointments in AI and digitisation, represented Telenor in the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on AI, and is a Board Member of Telenor Denmark.

She currently leads a joint AI task force of ETNO and GSMA Europe, and she is among the experts responsible for European Commission´s AI-related scientific program reviews, such as Horizon Europe and Digital Europe. Martinkenaite holds a PhD in Strategic Management from BI Norwegian Business School. 

Vegard is an Associate Professor in Strategy at BI Norwegian Business School and a Senior Research Fellow with Accenture. He is researching and teaching on strategy, new organizational forms, digitalization, and business models. His areas of expertise also include governance and organization design, communities and crowdsourcing, open innovation, digital strategy as well as the impact of AI on management. Vegard is responsible for the National Top Management Program in Healthcare together with Bjørn Erik Mørk and Academic Coordinator for the Executive MBA Digital track.

Liam is a Senior Sales Engineer at Fivetran with extensive IT experience. Digital transformation has influenced changes in the data & analytics industry over the last several years, leading to the creation of a modern data stack. In this session, you will learn about the history of a modern data stack, how the data world evolved to necessitate it, and what a modern data stack looks like today. Points to be discussed: - The core components to integrating a Modern Data Stack in your organisation - Best practices to reap the full benefits of a modern data stack for improved business efficiency, reporting & decision-making - The future of data management: How can you take advantage of the emerging trends?

Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, strategy advisor and award winning speaker noted for his humour, inspirational style and provocative content. He advises global firms on how to survive, thrive and develop innovative growth strategies in the decade ahead. Talwar helps clients understand how mega trends, emerging developments, new business models, and disruptive technologies could impact society, business, industries and government. He specialises in emerging markets and sectors such as technology, science, media, aviation, travel and retail.

Talwar delivers keynote speeches for leaders at business, government and association events – working in 60+ countries on six continents around the world. Regular topics include new business models, disruptive technologies, change drivers, economic futures, innovation, developing economies, professional services, complexity and winning in a downturn. He authored Designing Your Future – Key Trends, Challenges and Choices, edited Achieving Transformation and Renewal in Financial Services, and contributes regularly to books and journals on emerging trends, technologies and strategic change. Profiled by the Independent Newspaper as a top ten global future thinker, his interests include technology in business, society and embedding foresight in organisations.

Francesco Ravazzolo is Head of Department of Data Science and Analytics at BI Norwegian Business School. He is also Full Professor of Econometrics at Faculty of Economics and Management at Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and visiting Professor at Center for Applied Macro and commodity Prices at BI Norwegian Business School.
His research focuses on Bayesian econometrics, energy economics, financial econometrics and macroeconometrics. He has published in several leading academic journals.

Francesco serves the academia in several roles: he is in the editorial board of the following journals: Annals of Applied Statistics; International Journal of Forecasting; Journal of Applied Econometrics; Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics. He is also member of the executive committee of the Society of Nonlinear Dynamics and Econometrics and of the steering commette of the Italian Econometric Association.

Hilde C. Bjørnland is Professor of Economics at the BI Norwegian Business School. She holds a Master of Science in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics from London School of Economics, and a PhD (Dr.Polit) in Economics from the University of Oslo. She was awarded His Majesty, The King of Norway’s Gold medal for the Ph.D. thesis in social Sciences. Her main research interest are in the areas of applied macroeconomics and time series. Special interests include business cycles, energy economics, commodity prices, and fiscal- and monetary policy. She has published in leading journals such as the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Economic Journal, Journal of International Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics and the Review of Economics and Statistics. She is also the co-author of the book: “Applied Time Series For Macroeconomics”. Her work has been widely disseminated in international media, including for example Financial Times, Bloomberg and LSE Business Review.

The sheer volume and variety of data generated today can provide valuable insights and support decision making in areas such as public health, economic policy and education. For example, big data analytics can be used to monitor and track the spread of diseases, support monetary policy in the interest rate setting, mitigate financial risk and assess the effectiveness of educational policies. In this talk, I will focus on three areas of importance for the use of big data for policy analysis and decision making in particular: 1) Predictive analysis, 2) Real-time monitoring and 3) cost-effective decisions. The main conclusion is that big data can provide valuable insights, improve predictions and support evidence-based decision making. Still, it's important to consider the limitations and potential biases of the data, in order to make informed and effective policy decisions.

Leader and lean enthusiast with many years of experience. She has worked in various positions: implementation of Lean and training, transfer of services, establishment and management of branch administration, management of bank operations departments and various efficiency and change projects. Doctoral student of the University of Latvia with a focus on efficiency and lean application in the service industry. What best reflects the everyday: "There is nothing permanent except change." — Heraclitus and #lifetimelearning. Strategy and case study for using of Chatbot technology in DNB.

As a Senior Key Account Manager, Kristine advises and supports European governments, public administrations and international companies in advancing their operations in today’s multilingual world by introducing AI driven language technologies. She helps clients to develop and implement solutions to overcome language barriers when communicating across multilingual communities and markets, when automating processes and increasing efficiencies using latest language technologies.

Professor at Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, and Adjunct Professor at the Norwegian School of Economics. His main research interests are digital innovation and leadership, in the context of large infrastructures and ecosystems.  He has conducted empirical studies in the airline industry, hotel chains, public sector and ehealth, and published more than 120 articles internationally. He is Director of BS and MSc program Digital Economy and Management at UiO.

More than 25 years' experience in the ICT industry with strategic management, establishment and growth of companies, and HR management in large Nordic and international ICT companies. She has also experience in board management. Today managing director of the Norwegian Municipal Technical Association.
 
 

Sut I Wong is Head of Department and Professor of communication and management at BI Norwegian Business School. She is also a Professor II at the Department of Psychology at University of Oslo and an adjunct faculty at University of Ljubljana. She is the co-founder and has been the co-director of Nordic Center for Internet and Society at BI. Beside academic work, Sut I is highly involved in the industry and she currently is an advisory board member of two tech start-ups.

Her research focuses on both macro and micro foundations of labor-relations. At the macro level, she investigates the differences in institutional environment for employee participation programs across varieties of capitalist models.

She also looks at how industrial relation policies can better foster employee participation and organizational identification during mergers & acquisitions. At the micro level, she conducts research across various management disciplines, such as human resource management, leadership, organization behaviour, directing at individual proactivity, creativity/innovation, taking charge, leader-follower relationships, performance, and motivation.

Some of her research examine how autonomous working conditions at firm level and the relationality between leaders and followers influence individual and organizational outcomes.

More information coming soon.

Strategic leader and thinker, this seasoned Senior Consultant boasts two decades of experience in IT technology, development, project management, and bridging the gap between business and technology. Renowned for tackling complex challenges and fostering robust relationships across consulting, healthcare, and telecommunications sectors. A versatile professional with a multifaceted background encompassing roles such as programmer, tester, team lead, architect, project manager, product manager, partnership manager, and angel investor.