The Future Data Analytics And why It's the Crude Oil - ARMA

The press conference which marked the start of the 2019 Academy of Real Meta Analytics (ARMA) training course was held at the prestigious Oriental Hotel in Victoria Island, Lagos, yesterday (October 3, 2019).
In attendance were top digital and data analysts in the country and from other parts of the world.

The event was anchored by Happenings Radio OAP, Tushbee, and moderated by Ifeoma Nathaniel.
As expected of any reputable event, the national anthem was sung by everyone present and the CEO of Axon Analytics, Chief Edirin, Abamwa, gave his opening speech.
Five gentlemen and a lady, who formed a panel, were then brought on stage by Ngozi Odukwe, the Organisation and Methods Executive of Axon Analytics Limited, and also the Project Manager of ARMA.

The moderator and members of the audience were allowed to ask edifying questions about data.
The panelists; Rajesh Jakhotia and Saket Kumar from India and Nigeria-based data analytics experts, Ibrahim Hammed, Evans Otalor, Yvonne Alozie and Kayode Abass, shared their expertise as well as their professional opinions on questions from both media representatives and students.
Furthermore, in his keynote address, Rajesh Jakhotia gave an overview of Data and its importance in today's world. As if to buttress his point, he likened the future of data to oil, although a fellow panelist, Ibrahim Hammed did not subscribe to this assertion.

According to Ibrahim, crude oil is solely controlled by the government, Data on the other hand can be generated by individuals thus it was tough to place both side-by-side.
However, he noted that if Rajesh was comparing Data to Crude oil in the sense that it could be used as a 'lubricant' to power businesses in other to minimize cost and maximize profit, then such a comparison was understandable.
He further added that Data was somewhat similar to Crude oil because they both go through a process of refinement before they are distributed for its monetary value internationally.
Another panelist, Yvonne Alozie, Director of Programs at GitGirl while responding to questions about Data, said she was unsure if we are harnessing the full value of Data in our part of the world.
Alozie went on to say that most of the problems Nigeria faced as a developing economy is as a result of the lack of the optimal use of Data.

Using the analogy of hunger, she said that it was impossible to solve the problem of hunger if you do not know how many hungry people are out on the street.
Yvonne revealed that driven by a need to close this gap, is a reason ARMA is set up. As the untapped talents in the country can be taught how to sort and utilize the Data available to them.

Evans Otalor in his response to a question on customers' with regards Data Analytics, said that on the part of the customer, the general view is probably to acquire goods or services, but it is businesses who make use of Data while trying to meet the needs of the consumers.
On the reason very few women seem to be involved in Data Analytics, Yvonne said it is a systematic issue and not because the men are more resourceful in Data Analytics.
Rather she said it is socio-cultural conditioning, based on how women are raised in Nigeria. Thus most tech women are lost to order fields between the time of leaving school and starting a tech career.

Saket Kumar, the Chief Revenue Officer Emerging Markets, Netcore Solutions noted that India was faced with a similar problem in the past and it combatted this problem of inclusion by adding Tech subjects to the schools' curriculum and also getting more females to get actively involved in Tech.

Another panelist, Kayode Abass, posited that inevitably everybody would need to learn Data Analysis. His predictions stemmed from the seemingly small pool of professionals in the Data Analytics space.

According to Abass, when there are no data scientists to help with the business data, everyone will be forced to learn about it.
The Keynote speaker and one of the facilitators of ARMA's machine learning training, Rajesh further expounded on some of the things students of the course stand to gain at the end of the 7-day Machine Learning Training which ends on the 9th of October,2019.