Agenda Manchester 21 (archive)

Three tracks, two stages, one great agenda

AltitudeX’s lineup of world-renowned leaders will share their experiences, learnings and insight on decision making.

Main stage
Enrich
Combine

Act

Data and insight isn’t enough. We need people to make decisions, and learn from the outcomes and connect dots into the future.

This track is where we reflect and learn, looking at how we can make the right decision every time.

09:30 – 10:00 GMT

A new era for Peak and Decision Intelligence

Richard Potter, CEO of Peak, will show us how business can thrive in the Fourth Industrial era by harnessing the power of AI to make great commercial decisions, and outline why he believes Decision Intelligence will be the biggest new software category for decades. Richard will also be sharing some big updates on the future of Peak.

Richard Potter

CEO and co-founder at Peak

10:00 – 10:30 GMT

Decision making: is it time for an upgrade?

Making decisions is something we all have to do – thousands of them, every day. But are there human biases at play that mean we often make bad decisions? How can we overcome those biases and flaws to ensure we learn from failure rather than be doomed to repeat our mistakes?

Matthew Syed

Author, journalist and former English no.1 table tennis player

10:30 – 11:00 GMT

Lessons learnt from a career in broadcasting

Every decision is a risk, but big risks deliver big rewards. Lorraine Heggessey, BBC One's first female controller, shares the lessons she's learned over the course of her career. From an undercover trip to the Soviet Union in the 1980s, to scheduling programming during the 9/11 attacks and navigating the rise of social media, Lorraine has built a career on taking risks, often making decisions the entire nation could critique.

Lorraine Heggessey

First female controller of BBC One

11:30 – 12:00 GMT

Peak customer panel: the impact of Decision Intelligence

The last two years have been immensely challenging for businesses – hear directly from commercial leaders making decisions in tough conditions, who are still investing in innovation and are embracing the transformative power of AI to make a difference to their business.

Simon Mellin

CEO and Founder at The Modern Milkman

Mark Elston

Customer 360 Controller at Molson Coors

12:00 – 12:30 GMT

Connecting dots into the unknown: making decisions about an unknowable future

We’ll talk to those that have had success making the hardest decisions of all: what is the future going to look like? Our panel has to connect the dots into the unknowable future, and not only make predictions about the future, but invest their time and resources into those predictions. What can we learn from those that do this well?

David Foreman

Managing Director at Praetura Ventures

Keith Wallington

Chairperson, Investor, former COO of Mimecast

Hugh Campbell

Co-founder and Managing Partner of GP Bullhound

12:30 – 13:00 GMT

It’s time to level up your organization with Decision Intelligence

Neil Ward-Dutton, VP Analytics, AI and Automation Europe at IDC will talk us through upcoming research from IDC that shows how business pace and complexity are driving the need for Decision Intelligence and discuss the key considerations companies need to keep in mind if they want to succeed with AI.

Neil Ward-Dutton

VP Analytics, AI and Automation Europe at IDC

14:30 – 15:00 GMT

AI for good: how technology can help society’s most vulnerable

Technology can be an enabler for commercial businesses, but charities also collect data that can be used to make important decisions. In this session we will hear about FareShare Greater Manchester, an organization that distributed an incredible 8 million meal portions during lockdown. We will hear why they are looking to AI to make an impact on the work they do.

Miranda Kaunang

Head of Development at FareShare Greater Manchester

15:00 – 15:30 GMT

Special guest: Christopher Wylie

With insights and stories from his time at Cambridge Analytica, Chris will discuss the future of technology, psychographic targeting, and how AI will be used to predict cultural trends, from fashion to politics.

Christopher Wylie

Head of Insight & Emerging Tech at H&M

16:00 – 16:30 GMT

How to inspire others to act

“Do or do not, there is no try”. So said Yoda, the wisest of all Jedi. How can we also inspire our company, our team, to be decisive, to have the courage and conviction to act, to take risks, and to learn from failure? What kind of leadership maximizes our chance of success, and how is leadership changing?

Nicky Moffat

Former HR Director at the British Army

Cat Foster

Learning and Development Manager at Peak

16:30 – 17:00 GMT

Being the 'Yes Man'

Decision making is hard. So what happens when you don't have to make any decisions at all and simply say ‘Yes’ to everything? Hear from comedian, presenter, and author of 'Yes Man', Danny Wallace, who did just that for an entire year.

Danny Wallace

Author and Presenter

17:30 – 18:30 GMT

Post-event drinks reception, sponsored by Intel

We'll be heading over to Escape to Freight Island, just next door to Depot Mayfield, for a glass or two of the good stuff. We hope you can join us!

Enrich

To make great decisions we need to enrich our data, level up our teams and push ourselves to reach new heights.

This track will explore how we can use technology and techniques to improve our decision making, as well as exploring ideas that can empower our existing people and teams.

10:30 – 11:00 GMT

Supercharging farming with AI

Hear how FOTENIX, an ability provider enabling smart operation of agricultural machinery, uses the Peak platform to supercharge its data science and improve crop yields and soil health.

Charles Veys

Managing Director at FOTENIX

12:00 – 12:30 GMT

A look inside Peak

A tour through Peak’s Decision Intelligence platform, highlighting some of the key benefits and functionality that make it

Chris Billingham

Head of Platform GTM at Peak

12:30 – 13:00 GMT

Why data alone isn’t enough

Despite having more data at our fingertips, many believe it’s getting harder, not easier, to make decisions. Data science, ML and AI might hold the key to finally being able to make the most of our data and supercharge our abilities to make fast, accurate decisions all the time.

Leanne Kim Fitzpatrick

Head of Data Science at Financial Times

15:00 – 15:30 GMT

What is AI, anyway?

So you’ve heard of ML, and have read about the exciting potential of AI to change our world. But how? Is it possible to explain it all without having a PHD? In this session, we’ll answer the questions about AI you’ve been too afraid to ask, with some help of some younger Peakers.

Áine McTiernan

Customer Success Manager, Peak

17:30 – 18:30 GMT

Post-event drinks reception, sponsored by Intel

We'll be heading over to Escape to Freight Island, just next door to Depot Mayfield, for a glass or two of the good stuff. We hope you can join us!

Combine

To connect the dots, companies must break down silos and bring together insight, expertise and experience from different areas of their business.

This track will explore the benefits of combining things together, be that data, teams, or people.

11:00 – 11:30 GMT

A single source of truth: lakes, ponds, warehouses and removing silos of data

Data, data everywhere, and not a drop of insight. An organization's data can exist spread across dozens of different systems of record, what are the benefits of having a single source of truth? Can we finally unlock the potential of our data? And do data warehouses and lakes hold the key?

Dimitri French

Principal, AI&ML at Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Vladimir Brenner

Director, Scale Partners at Intel

14:30 – 15:00 GMT

How to break down barriers to innovation

Every company wants to innovate, so why is it hard for companies to actually be more innovative? How can we better communicate internally about new opportunities for growth in order to get buy in at every level? How can organisations create a culture that embraces testing out new ideas? In this session Priya will share advice and learnings from a career spent embracing new technologies and disrupting industries.

Priya Lakhani

Serial entrepreneur, Founder CEO at CENTURY Tech

15:30 – 16:00 GMT

Why R&D should be for everyone

Research and development not only can uncover opportunities for the future, they can change the way we work today. Tapping into the academic community can be an underused channel to bring huge benefits to the commercial sector. Here we discuss Peak's work with the University of Manchester and how your organization can also benefit.

Alex Bogatu

Applied AI Scientist, Digital Experimental Cancer Medicine Team

Mark Douthwaite

Lead product manager at Peak

17:30 – 18:30 GMT

Post-event drinks reception, sponsored by Intel

We'll be heading over to Escape to Freight Island, just next door to Depot Mayfield, for a glass or two of the good stuff. We hope you can join us!

Workshops

Practical and actionable, our workshops leverage Peak’s expertise to show you the 'how' of embracing AI to transform decision making.

Creating autonomy and self-sufficiency by giving people what they need in order to do the things they need to do! What gets in the way, and how can we overcome those barriers? How do we get started quickly, effectively and safely? We'll come together to look at what MLOps entails, some of the tools available and what common MLOps pipelines look like.

In this session, data scientists from Peak will talk about some of the innovative solutions we use to deliver value to our customers, sharing their real-life stories and practical examples. What was the business problem? How did we address it? How did the customer benefit? These topics and more will be discussed by the very data scientists that developed those solutions.

The story of Peak’s transition from professional services to PaaS in five years: monoliths to microservices, dashboards to an end-to-end AI platform and the reinvention of this platform many times along the way. Peak’s engineers reflect on the decisions that led to why they did what they did, demonstrating what went well, what could have been done better – and what is still left to do!

Without the trust of decision makers, even the best model will be unable to deliver value to a business. Gaining trust, and explaining models in a way that builds trust, is a crucial part of data science. But in a field where models might be complex – or even an opaque black-box – this isn’t easy. We’ll reflect on the times when explainability might have been a challenge, considering why that was the case and how hurdles were overcome. We’ll evaluate different explainability methods available to data scientists, and have an open discussion about current challenges in the field.

An opportunity for students and academics to present their work in front of industry leaders and future employers to show off your skills.

Learn more

Speakers

Leaders, innovators and experts will be sharing their knowledge with us

Danny Wallace

Author and Presenter

The Yes Man and Join Me founder has tested the nation and explored Awkward Situations For Men. Danny Wallace is a comic writer and presenter who has worked with some of Britain’s brightest comedians and performers and has produced a host of acclaimed books based on his unusual adventures.

Matthew Syed

Author, journalist and former English no.1 table tennis player

Matthew is an author and highly acclaimed speaker in the field of high performance. He has written six best-selling books on the subject of mindset and high performance. He is also a multi-award-winning journalist for The Times and a regular contributor to television and radio. In his previous career, Matthew was the England table tennis number one for almost a decade.

Christopher Wylie

Head of Insight & Emerging Tech at H&M

The New Yorker calls him “a pink-haired, nose-ringed oracle sent from the future.” Best known for his role in setting up – and then taking down – the cyberwarfare firm Cambridge Analytica, Chris has been listed in TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World, Forbes’ 30 Under 30, Politico ’s 50 Most Influential People in Politics and Business Insider ’s 100 Coolest People in Tech.

Nicky Moffat

Former HR Director at the British Army

Nicky Moffat CBE was the British Army’s highest ranking female officer, stepping down as Brigadier after 30 years in leadership roles. As HR, Director Nicky was in charge of establishing strategy and driving cultural change across the Army.

Mark Elston

Customer 360 Controller at Molson Coors

Mark has worked in FMCG Sales and technology roles for almost 20 years, with time at Mars, GSK and the last 10 years with Molson Coors. He is passionate about harnessing technology to help sell more and to make life easier for sales and support teams. He has spent the last three years leading the agile development of the Molson Coors’ Salesforce.com CRM and B2B solutions.

Lorraine Heggessey

First female controller of BBC One

During Lorraine’s time at the helm, the network’s ratings overtook ITV for the first time since it launched in 1955. Armed with a £300m programme budget she introduced Spooks and Strictly Come Dancing, and scored a massive success with a new-look Dr Who. She has since gone on to pivotal leadership roles in the private and charity sectors.

Leanne Kim Fitzpatrick

Head of Data Science at Financial Times

Leanne is a passionate data science leader with experience of building and developing empowered data science and analytics teams in a variety of businesses. Leanne is in her element when developing technical and cultural solutions to putting machine learning into production. Leanne is an Advisory Panel board member at the University of Sheffield Information School.